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Digital Universe: The Speed of Data Creation is Rapidly Accelerating
The amount of digital data in the world has been doubling every two years, and is expected to increase by a factor of ten between now and 2020. That’s an increase from 4.4 trillion gigabytes of information available today to more than 44 trillion gigabytes in 2012. That’s the prediction of this year’s report from IDC and EMC on the size of the ‘digital universe‘.
To better conceptualize how massive these numbers are, IDC illustrates with an analogy using iPad Air tablets. If all of today’s data were stored on tablets and then stacked, they would reach to two-thirds of the way to the moon. And by 2020 we would have 6.6 stacks between the moon and the earth.
A limiting factor to the volume of data that can be stored is the size of the all available storage media capacity. IDC estimates that in 2013 we only had enough space to store 33 percent of all data produced on digital media, and that by 2020 we’ll only be capable of storing less than 15 percent of all data that gets produced.
The report finds along with the growth in the volume of data stored, the nature of data being collected will change dramatically between now and 2020. In 2014, two-thirds of all data is generated by people, like email, documents, and interactions with web sites. Increasingly, data is being generated by machines as the Internet of Things is expected to take off.
While the majority of information (60 percent) available on the Internet today is created in the US, Japan and Germany, that is expected to change soon. IDC predicts that by 2020, information produced by emerging-market countries like India, Brazil, China, Mexico and Russia will make up the bulk of all data.
Rajesh Janey, EMC President in India, said that “China already accounts for 14 per cent of the digital universe. Though US’ share has declined as the other emerging markets have grown, it is still 26 per cent. India’s share is also growing from 3 per cent in 2010 to 6 per cent in 2020.”
