- Cerabyte's ceramic-on-glass technology opens a new era of sustainable digital archiving
- Persistent media eliminates the energy requirements of traditional archival systems.
- Samples read on a smartphone show how accessible persistent data storage can become
At the recent Open Compute Project (OCP) 2025 Global Summit in San Jose, California, Cerabyte offered attendees an unusual opportunity to “own a piece of data storage history.”
The company showed off framed samples of its ceramic-on-glass media, each containing a digital copy of the U.S. Constitution.
These early access samples demonstrate a new form of storage technology that is designed to outlast all traditional media currently in use.
The competition took place as part of the OCP Innovation Village, where companies present technologies that are changing the future of computing, networking and data centers.
Cerabyte's approach is based on the idea that data storage must be permanent and sustainable.
The company's ceramic media requires no maintenance, energy or migration to store information, offering what it calls “unlimited data retention.”
This design significantly reduces long-term storage costs and carbon emissions, a claim likely to appeal to data-heavy industries such as hyperscalers, research institutions and digital archives.
This demo focused on symbolic content rather than capacity, and the current prototype reportedly contains several gigabytes.
Summit attendees were treated to a live demonstration showing how to read and decode data stored on ceramic-to-glass media using a standard smartphone.
This accessibility feature distinguishes the technology from traditional archival storage, which often requires specialized readers or environments.
“Data is at the core of society, as is artificial intelligence, but storage is not designed to permanently store data and provide quick access to it,” said Christian Pflaum, CEO of Cerabyte. “This is a unique combination that is key to preserving the past and unlocking future use cases.”
Despite promises of durability and efficiency, questions remain about scalability, production costs and practical implementation.
While examples of pottery on glass provide striking insight into archival longevity, their path to commercial viability in the modern world cloud storage environment and artificial intelligence data infrastructure still remains uncertain.
For now, OCP Summit attendees have had the opportunity to not only take home a keepsake of innovation, but perhaps a tangible sign of where the future of data preservation may lead.
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