Scientists from Australia and China have drawn on the durable power of gold to demonstrate a new type of high-capacity optical disk that can hold data securely for more than 600 years. The technology could offer a more cost-efficient and sustainable solution to the global data storage problem while enabling the critical pivot from Big Data to Long Data, opening up new realms of scientific discovery.

A team of chemists and engineers at prestigious Brown University, an Ivy League institution in the US, are seeking a method to store and manipulate data in a way that has never been done before — by representing data using molecules dissolved in solution. Such a system could have the potential to store billions of terabytes of data in a single flask of liquid

Have you heard of the “ zettabyte apocalypse ?” It’s a term coined to describe how organisations must be prepared to increase storage to an additional 40 to 60 zettabytes of data (per most analysts’ predictions) over the next four years or risk being left susceptible to the type of “apocalyptic” disasters—compliance violations and fines, data loss and theft, etc.—that could run them out of business.