The Digital Universe – how will it impact your business?

April 22, 2013

A new study by IDC has revealed some interesting facts about what it terms the “digital universe”. This is defined as a measure of all digital data created, replicated and consumed in a single year.

Starting with data collected in 2005 and extending it to 2020, IDC believe that:

• From 2005 to 2020 the digital universe will grow from 130 exabytes to 40 trillion gigabytes – a factor of 30
• The investment in the infrastructure of the universe (hardware, software services etc) will grow by 40% between 2012 and 2020
• 68% of the information in 2012 is created and consumed by consumers yet enterprises have responsibility for nearly 80% of the information. This leads to issues like copyright, privacy and compliance with data moving through their networks even though it is consumed by others.
• By 2020 almost 40% of the information in the digital universe will be stored or processed in a cloud somewhere on its journey from creation to disposal
• Much of the digital universe is transient – e.g. phone calls not recorded etc

Despite the rapid growth of big data, IDC believes that only a tiny fraction of it has been explored. By 2020 they estimate as much as 33% of the digital universe will contain information that might be valuable if analysed. From patterns in social media usage to medical information and security footage to scientific data, the potential for the extraction of value is high.

So, what are the implications for us all? Well, there is certainly increasing interest in areas like automatic tagging algorithms, real-time analytics, social media data mining and new storage technologies. How will it impact your business?