Written by

Bernard Marr

Bernard Marr is a world-renowned futurist, influencer and thought leader in the fields of business and technology, with a passion for using technology for the good of humanity. He is a best-selling author of over 20 books, writes a regular column for Forbes and advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organisations. He has a combined following of 4 million people across his social media channels and newsletters and was ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 business influencers in the world.

Bernard’s latest books are ‘Future Skills’, ‘The Future Internet’, ‘Business Trends in Practice’ and ‘Generative AI in Practice’.

Generative AI Book Launch
View My Latest Books

Follow Me

Bernard Marr ist ein weltbekannter Futurist, Influencer und Vordenker in den Bereichen Wirtschaft und Technologie mit einer Leidenschaft für den Einsatz von Technologie zum Wohle der Menschheit. Er ist Bestsellerautor von 20 Büchern, schreibt eine regelmäßige Kolumne für Forbes und berät und coacht viele der weltweit bekanntesten Organisationen. Er hat über 2 Millionen Social-Media-Follower, 1 Million Newsletter-Abonnenten und wurde von LinkedIn als einer der Top-5-Business-Influencer der Welt und von Xing als Top Mind 2021 ausgezeichnet.

Bernards neueste Bücher sind ‘Künstliche Intelligenz im Unternehmen: Innovative Anwendungen in 50 Erfolgreichen Unternehmen’

View Latest Book

Follow Me

How Much Data Is There In the World?

2 July 2021

If you’re roughly the same age as me, you might remember buying a laptop in the 2000s that came with around 40GB of data. ‘Wow, that’s a LOT of storage!’ we all thought at the time. 

Now, even the most basic smartphone comes with around 30GB of data storage, while a top-of-the-range iPhone has more than 500GB.

But the days of being impressed by gigabytes are long gone. As the amount of data in the world has increased exponentially, we’ve had to come up with new, unfamiliar words to describe data in numerical form. So long, gigabytes. These days, we’re talking terabytes, petabytes, exabytes and zettabytes.

You lost me at petabyte…

A terabyte is just over 1,000 gigabytes, and is a label most of us are familiar with from our home computers.

Scaling up from there, a petabyte is just over 1,000 terabytes. That may be far beyond the kind of data storage the average person needs, but industry has been dealing with data in these sorts of quantities for quite some time. In fact, way back in 2008, Google was said to process around 20 petabytes of data a day (Google doesn’t release information on how much data it processes today). To put that in context, if you took all of the information from all US academic research libraries and lumped it all together, it would add up to 2 petabytes.

Scaling up again, you have exabytes (roughly 1,000 petabytes) and zettabytes (a little over 1,000 exabytes). At this stage, it becomes hard to comprehend what any of this means in real terms. Try this: according to a Cisco estimate, the world’s collective internet usage reached one zettabyte in 2016. That’s a lot of cat videos being viewed! 

So, as the world’s data has grown, we’re now talking about data in terms of zettabytes. 

How many zettabytes have been created so far?

According to market intelligence company IDC, the Global Datasphere in 2018 reached 18 zettabytes. This is the total of all data created, captured or replicated. (Not all of this data is being stored and kept, though.) 

The vast majority of the world’s data has been created in the last few years and this astonishing growth of data shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, IDC predicts the world’s data will grow to 175 zettabytes in 2025.

Let’s dwell on that for a second: 175 zettabytes. What does that even mean? According to IDC’s ‘Data Age 2025 paper:

  • If you were to store 175 zettabytes on DVDs, your stack of DVDs would be long enough to circle Earth 222 times. 
  • If you attempted to download 175 zettabytes at the average current internet connection speed, it would take you 1.8 billion years to download. Even if you enlisted every person in the world to help with the download, it would still take 81 days.

Where is all this data coming from?

It’s mind-boggling to think that humans are creating so much data. Or is it? Think of how much data you’re generating in an average day. Every interaction with your computer or phone creates data. Every interaction on social media creates data. Every time you walk down the street with a phone in your pocket, it’s tracking your location through GPS sensors – more data. Every time you buy something with your contactless debit card? Data. Every time you read an article online? Data. Every time you stream a song, movie or podcast? Data, data, data.

As an example, let’s look at social media usage in 2018. In just one minute:

  • Twitter users sent 473,400 tweets
  • Snapchat users shared 2 million photos
  • Instagram users posted 49,380 pictures
  • LinkedIn gained 120 new users

In short, all of the world’s data is the result of our increasingly digitised way of life. The connectivity of modern smart devices – not just smart phones, but smart TVs, smart thermostats and so on – also plays a huge role. These devices are constantly gathering and transmitting data.

Other mind-blowing data stats include:

  • Google processes more than 40,000 searches every second, or 3.5 billion searches a day. 
  • 1.5 billion people are active on Facebook every day. That’s one-fifth of the world’s population.
  • Two-thirds of the world’s population now own a mobile phone.

When you look at stats like these, it’s not hard to see how the world’s data has exploded in recent years and will continue to grow at an incredible rate. Whether we’ll hit that vast number of 175 zettabytes in 2025 remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: we’ll be generating a heck of a lot more data than we already are. 

Where to go from here

If you would like to know more about data, check out my articles on:


Business Trends In Practice | Bernard Marr
Business Trends In Practice | Bernard Marr

Related Articles

The New HR Playbook: Catalyze Innovation With Analytics And AI

Beneath the surface of every HR function, there lies a treasure trove of data. But if that[...]

The Eight Biggest HR Trends In 2024

For those working in employee and people management, the focus in 2024 will be on managing[...]

The New Frontier In Workplace Safety: Data Analytics And AI

Almost all employers want to ensure their workplaces are safe zones that are free[...]

The Biggest Banking And Financial Services Trends For 2024

2024 promises to be a landmark year in banking and finance, marked by significant[...]

The Evolution Of Data-Driven And AI-Enabled HR

The pulse of any organization lies not just in its products or services but in its people.[...]

How Data And AI Are Reshaping Contemporary HR Practices

The world of human resources (HR) stands on the precipice of an exciting era powered by data and AI.[...]

Sign up to Stay in Touch!

Bernard Marr is a world-renowned futurist, influencer and thought leader in the fields of business and technology, with a passion for using technology for the good of humanity.

He is a best-selling author of over 20 books, writes a regular column for Forbes and advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organisations.

He has a combined following of 4 million people across his social media channels and newsletters and was ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 business influencers in the world.

Bernard’s latest book is ‘Generative AI in Practice’.

Sign Up Today

Social Media

0
Followers
0
Followers
0
Followers
0
Subscribers
0
Followers
0
Subscribers
0
Yearly Views
0
Readers

Podcasts

View Podcasts