Diamonds have long been considered the most precious gemstone. Their unique natural hardness and historical scarcity have made them a favourite of both jewellers and their customer base. Now, Chinese researchers have discovered another use for diamonds that breaks every data storage record that currently exists.
Practical Uses for Diamonds
Diamonds already have practices use cases outside of jewellery. They’re most notably used for drill bits, saw blades and other construction equipment that requires a hard, near-indestructible point of contact. Over the past few years, researchers have also been testing them for data storage properties.
If diamonds can store data, they could find a new life in computer tech markets. Everything on a screen is hosted somewhere, in hard drives and server racks across the world. For most digital services, large and costly data centres store huge amounts of data and then broadcast it to our devices. For example, in the iGaming industry, a site would load and process a slot game on their end, before it arrives at your screen. This process is necessary for video streaming too, so if you play at a live casino, a nearby data centre is providing users with real-time footage of a blackjack or roulette game with next to no latency. Data centre storage and hosting is a huge business, which is why tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft rent their centres to the world’s smaller businesses.
A more efficient means of storing data can bring down the cost of operating data centres, making it easier for businesses of all stripes to participate in digital economies. It can also save the consumer money by bringing down the cost of some services, but also providing a more efficient way of storing their own personal information. According to researchers in China, diamonds could be the key to developing a new type of disc that can store 2000 times the average Blu-ray disc.
The 100 Terabyte Diamond Disc
As mentioned, researchers had been looking into diamond-based data storage for quite some time. However, most of this was research was theoretical until the University of Science and Technology of China stepped in. There, a team led by Professor Ya Wang have cracked what they call ‘quantum diamond storage’ where diamonds are integrated into a disc’s surface, enabling a 1.85 terabyte per cubic centimetre storage density. Put simply, it breaks every known record for data storage, as a full disc could hold 100 terabytes of data. Current hard drives top out at around 32 terabytes.
That isn’t all – these discs can also store their data for far longer than any other kind of storage. Research lead Ya Wang said: “Diamond can achieve extraordinary longevity – data retention for millions of years at room temperature – without requiring any maintenance.” This is also a huge breakthrough, as other storage solutions like quantum require very particular conditions to keep data intact.
What Does This Mean for Diamonds?
Like any breakthrough, there are still matters like scalability and commercial viability to consider. Diamonds are expensive, and Wang’s team wrote data into them using advanced laser and fluorescent imaging devices. When it takes an entire lab to get the job done, it’s not ready for market just yet. The team is optimistic, however, believing that they can replicate the process using a device that’s the size of your average microwave.
Researchers will double down on this discovery and, if successful, it could make diamonds more profitable than ever. While there’ll always be a place for diamonds on a wedding ring, finding more use cases will give these white gems more intrinsic value. We already have a real-world example of this in silver. Modern silver prices are sensitive to its industrial demand because it’s a crucial component for electronic devices, like photovoltaic solar panels.
For jewellers and others who deal in gemstones, this new technology could make diamonds even more precious than they already are. It could justify higher asking prices for diamonds, making them a more profitable stone to keep in-store. This would freeze out some buyers, but then they’d move to the next best stones that are more in line with their budget. So, it could also make other diamond alternatives more profitable, like moissanite and cubic zirconia, or the colours – ruby, sapphire and emerald.
Diamonds will always have a special place in the collective consciousness – one that has been carefully built and curated over hundreds of years. In fact, if diamonds become the next way to store our precious memories, they could become even more culturally significant.
Over the next decade, diamond-holding jewellers should keep their eye on this technology to see if it enters the market in the future. If it does, then that old De Beers slogan – a diamond is forever – could become a reality.
