IDC: Expect 175 zettabytes of data worldwide by 2025
IDC predicts that the collective sum of the world’s data will grow from 33 zettabytes this year to a 175 zettabytes by 2025, for a compounded annual growth rate of 61%. IDC also predicts that companies worldwide will spend nearly $7.4 trillion on digital transformation programs between 2020 and 2023.
The explosion in cloud-based data will be matched by an increase in data stored in the core, or data centers. IDC says businesses are looking to centralise data management and delivery, as well as to leverage data to control their businesses and the user experience. The responsibility to maintain and manage all this consumer and business data supports the growth in cloud provider data centers. As a result, the enterprise’s role as a data steward continues to grow, and consumers are not just allowing this, but expecting it. Beginning in 2019, more data will be stored in the enterprise core than in all the world’s existing endpoints.
IDC sees a mix of old and new technologies, with traditional spinning hard-disk drives and solid-state drives both growing quickly and NVM-NAND technology taking off as the price comes down. Tape drives will grow, not die off, because they offer economical storage and superb archival functions. The edge will continue to grow, driven by IoT and the shift to “real-time” data instead of data that is stored and acted upon later. IDC predicts the average person will have nearly 5,000 digital interactions per day by 2025, up from the 700 to 800 or so that people average today.
