Can a glass disc just 12 cm in diameter and 2 mm thick store as much data as 25,000 HD movies? This is not science fiction, but a groundbreaking storage technology developed in China: the glass hard drive.

Unlike traditional hard drives, which are vulnerable to magnetic interference, physical shocks, power failures, and data corruption, the glass hard drive can withstand temperatures of up to 290°C, is waterproof, immune to electromagnetic interference, and requires no electricity to preserve stored data. Instead, ultra-short-pulse lasers engrave data layer by layer into high-purity fused silica glass. Its physically immutable and undeletable nature makes it particularly suitable for high-security applications such as financial archives, judicial records, and classified data.

With a maximum storage capacity of 360 TB per disc, its storage density is reportedly 10,000 times that of a Blu-ray disc. Its theoretical lifespan exceeds 100,000 years, eliminating the risk of data loss caused by media degradation. Beyond its exceptional performance, the technology is also claimed to cost only one-tenth as much as traditional storage solutions.

As the technology enters small-scale mass production, China has become the first country to commercialize this type of glass storage technology.