Date (TBD), Newark, Delaware: Deep tech start-up, SPhotonix, has appointed Thomas Coughlin to its Executive Advisor Group as it begins to scale operations in the long-term data storage sector. Following the world-breaking announcement from SPhotonix’s alma mater, the University of Southampton, that the human genome has been successfully stored on a 5D Memory Crystal, interest in the technology for industrial and business use has soared. 

Thomas Coughlin, regarded as the human wikipedia for digital data storage, has over 40 years of experience in the perpetually evolving data storage sector, managing and developing digital storage device and systems design. Thomas has worked with notable brands such as Seagate, Maxtor, Micropolis, Ampex and SyQuest amongst others, and has six patents. He also is the author of multiple papers and books about data storage, and is well known for his work with IEEE and SNIA. 

Commenting on his appointment, Thomas said:
"There is a major increase in demand for storage of data including long term archival storage, particularly over the last few years with the uptake of AI applications. Long time retention of digital data will preserve the story of who we were and what we know.  SPhotonix is developing tools to enable data preservation and I am honored to have an opportunity to work with them and help make this possible.”

Thomas’s appointment comes as SPhotonix scales its commercial activities, from singular consumer projects, with storage of family histories, to broader archival needs from museums, to bigger, high volume data storage as an alternative to traditional storage and data warehouse methods.

Ilya Kazansky, CEO, SPhotonix said:
“The potential for our femtotechnology and 5D Memory Crystals as a form of durable and sustainable data storage with high density is significant across all sectors. Whether that is for ‘store and forget’ projects or those that require long term storage with frequent access, we are geared to deliver. Working with Thomas has already been valuable as he brings such depth of knowledge and understanding about data storage to our application using fused quartz in the 5D format. It’s an exciting step for SPhotonix.”

SPhotonix has several new projects in the pipeline that demonstrate the dexterity and applicability of optical device storage as well as optical device fabrication. The brand has recently reported on the need for sustainable solutions for data storage especially long term archival uses, as data generation continues to soar, with a resultant impact on traditional data storage mediums. 

SPhotonix founder, Prof Kazansky, recently stored the human genome on a 5D Memory Crystal that can last billions of years. The revolutionary technology developed for that purpose is now being applied to create these groundbreaking optical elements.