The British Library holds in its custodianship a vast collection of manuscripts and printed books from China and Central Asia that was gathered by Sir Marc Aurel Stein and other explorers in the early 20th century. This outstanding collection contains over 45,000 items written on paper, wood and other materials in many languages spoken in China and Central Asia. Since 1994, the British Library has played a leading role in the development of the International Dunhuang Project (IDP), a large-scale international network connecting partner institutions in Europe, Asia and the US holding collections related to Dunhuang and other Silk Road sites. All partners share the vision of making the images and metadata related to the collections under their custodianship fully and freely available online. This is made possible through the IDP website, a digital platform which is powered by the IDP database, provided by 4D. The 4D database operates across seven synchronised servers that are located at the British Library and the National Library of China, the Dunhuang Academy, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in St Petersburg, Ryukoku University and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. This system relies on a sharing mechanism that allows access to images and data of the collections, whilst ensuring that each institution retains full ownership of their high resolution images. In turn, it enables a wide range of users of the IDP website to access and explore collections across the IDP network. This repository is an essential tool for researchers, professionals and students across the world working on Buddhist studies, Silk Road studies and Asian manuscripts. The Library has initiated the urgent upgrade of the IDP database across all the seven linked servers to ensure stabilisation and access by staff and external users for at least the coming 2-3 years, and full synchronisation of the system. The AHRC investment will provide the hardware upgrades necessary for this work, enabling the British Library to replace the existing IDP workstations with new machines, which will support the new IDP database in 2021, and the existing data storage units that have come to the end of their lifecycle with expanded and updated ones. This equipment is essential to British Library staff and research fellows working on the Stein and other collections uploaded in the IDP database. This work will ensure the sustainability of the IDP activities for the years ahead, the safe running of core operations, and access by staff and external users to the metadata and images held in separate institutions.