London, Sep 29 (IANS): Computer firm Hitachi has developed a quartz glass-based storage system that will last for an unbelievable 100 million years.

The Daily Mail said that though developments in recent years in computer file storage have moved from the physical to the electronic, yet the problems of damage and loss still persist.

However, Hitachi has unveiled a new method of storing digital information on slivers of quartz glass that can endure extreme temperatures and hostile conditions without degrading, almost forever.

"The volume of data being created every day is exploding, but in terms of keeping it for later generations, we haven't necessarily improved since the days we inscribed things on stones," Hitachi researcher Kazuyoshi Torii was quoted as saying.

He said the life of digital media currently available -- CDs and hard drives -- is limited to a few decades or a century at most.

Hitachi's new technology stores data in binary form by creating dots inside a thin sheet of quartz glass that can be read with an ordinary optical microscope, the daily said.

The chip is resistant to many chemicals and unaffected by radio waves, and can be exposed directly to high temperature flames and heated to 1,000 degrees Celsius for at least two hours without being damaged.

It is also waterproof, meaning it could survive natural calamities, such as fires and tsunami.

"We believe data will survive unless this hard glass is broken," researcher Takao Watanabe was quoted as saying.