Norway already has its “doomsday vault”, built to protect seeds from all over the world. Its remote location and cold climate turned the vault into a success, and a company called Piql has decided to expand the concept—but applied to data. Nations interested in preserving their archives can send material to the new World Arctic Archive, where it will be stored on special photosensitive films capable of lasting more than 500 years.
The Seed Vault and Its First Withdrawal
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds just over 930,000 samples. Unfortunately, we’ve already been forced to use them: the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) withdrew its deposit to rebuild its seed bank after leaving Aleppo, a city devastated by the civil war in Syria. While that is the reason it was built in the first place, the hope of never touching its contents was never lost.
A New Home for Information
Now there is another critical element that can make the difference between the survival of the human species and its definitive disappearance: Information. Our core data are ones and zeros, vulnerable and prone to destruction wherever you look. The simple passage of time annihilates our knowledge, and just like seeds, a new initiative plans to save it. Piql has opened the doors of the World Arctic Archive, a vault located in an abandoned coal mine near the seed vault in Svalbard. The company also handles converting digital data to a new photosensitive WORM (Write-Once-Read-Many) film that can resist at least 500 years. According to a Piql spokesperson, the process is similar to recording giant QR codes onto the films.
Nations and organizations storing their data can make remote queries—as long as the Internet still exists—and coordinate their transfer digitally or on a previously agreed physical medium. Storing information with analog technology has considerable advantages: in theory, the only things needed to recover it are a light source and a lens. The first two countries to protect their national archives were Brazil and Mexico. Others are expected to join soon.
