Indestructible 5D memory crystals to store humanity’s genome for billions of years

Researchers have stored the entire human genome on a 5D memory crystal, a data storage breakthrough that can last billions of years.

A team at the University of Southampton envisions the crystal serving as a blueprint to revive humanity from extinction, even billions of years into the future if science permits.

The method may also be utilized to compile a permanent database of the genomes of threatened plant and animal species.

“The 5D memory crystal opens up possibilities for other researchers to build an everlasting repository of genomic information from which complex organisms like plants and animals might be restored should science in the future allow,” said Peter Kazansky, professor in optoelectronics at the University and the lead on the study.

Crystal data breakthrough

Developed by the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), the 5D memory crystal represents a major breakthrough in data storage.

Unlike conventional formats that deteriorate over time, these crystals can preserve up to 360 terabytes of data (in the largest size) for billions of years without degradation, even under extreme temperatures. In 2014, it earned the Guinness World Record for the most durable storage material.

The crystal, comparable to fused quartz, is one of the most chemically and thermally stable materials on Earth. According to researchers, it withstands extreme conditions, including freezing temperatures, fire, and heat up to 1000°C. It also endures direct impact of up to 10 tons per cm² and resists prolonged exposure to cosmic radiation.

The Southampton team utilizes ultra-fast lasers to inscribe data into nanostructured voids within the silica, with feature sizes as small as 20 nanometers.

The team highlights that unlike traditional data storage, which involves surface-level marking, this method encodes information using two optical dimensions and three spatial coordinates, creating the ‘5D’ data storage format.

Enduring genetic blueprint

Genetic information alone cannot currently be used to synthetically produce humans, plants, or animals. Researchers highlight that recent years have seen significant advancements in synthetic biology, most notably the 2010 discovery of a synthetic bacteria by Dr. Craig Venter’s team.

“We know from the work of others that genetic material of simple organisms can be synthesized and used in an existing cell to create a viable living specimen in a lab,” said Kazansky, in a statement .

The group developed a 5D memory crystal that included the entire human genome in order to test this theory. To ensure that every letter in the genome was in its proper place, each of the roughly three billion letters was sequenced 150 times. Helixwork Technologies was a partner in the deep-read sequencing project.

The crystal is kept in the Memory of Mankind repository, a unique time capsule located in an Austrian salt cave near Hallstatt.

When creating the crystal, the team thought about the possibility that some intelligence (a machine or species) that follows us in the far future will be able to access the data it contains. In fact, it could be discovered so far into the future that there isn’t even a frame of reference.

“The visual key inscribed on the crystal gives the finder knowledge of what data is stored inside and how it could be used,” said Kazansky.

Above the data planes, the crystal displays key elements (hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen), DNA bases (adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine), their molecular structures, and gene placement within chromosomes. To identify the species, the design pays tribute to NASA’s Pioneer spacecraft plaques, symbolizing the crystal’s connection to humanity.

“We don’t know if memory crystal technology will ever follow these plaques in distance travelled but each disc can be expected with a high degree of confidence to exceed their survival time,” said Kazansky.