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The global datasphere will skyrocket in size—but not how you’d expect it to. What are the implications for business and individuals?

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New Approaches for A New Data Age

It’s no surprise that our world will be awash in data in 2025. But what is startling is volume of data: 163 zettabytes (ZB), a ten-fold increase over what was created in 2016, according to a recent report by analyst firm IDC and sponsored by Seagate. The report also identifies other disruptive data trends reshaping the global datasphere, such as the increasing life-critical nature of data to society, the shift of data to the cloud and the surge in devices that create data without human involvement.

2016

16ZB

2025

163ZB

Zettabytes, projected size of global datasphere in 2025

Zettabytes, projected size of global datasphere in 2025

A Shift to Enterprise

As data creation is increasingly being automated, analyzed, and delivered real-time to the edge of the network, the percentage of data being created is shifting from the consumer to the enterprise. Notably, regardless of where data is being created, it is increasing being stored by enterprises. For example, with social media, content created by individuals ultimately gets uploaded to enterprise infrastructure.

0 %

Data created by enterprises in 2015

0 %

Data created by enterprises in 2025

Where data is created

2017

Endpoint Edge
Core

2025

Endpoint Edge
Core

Where data is stored

2017

Mobile Enterprise
Entertainment PC

2025

Mobile Enterprise
Entertainment PC

The Urgency of Quality Over Quantity

This explosion in the amount, variety and importance of data created will pose new challenges for business and individuals. Not all data is equally important—and it is useless without context. The organizations that excel during this period will be ones that identify and focus on the critical subsets of data that result in the highest impact.

Life-Critical
Internet of Things
Mobile & Real-Time
Cognitive Systems
Security

From Life‑Enhancing to Life‑Critical

Data has become essential to the optimal operation of our society and our lives, such as to critical infrastructure, medical devices and even autonomous cars. The shift from previous decades is such that, were the data flow to stop, not only would our business operations cease, but also the smooth operation of our daily lives. The increasing proportion of data known or expected to be critical and hypercritical in 2025 illustrates this trend.

Data with potential for disruption or life and death implications in 2025

2017

2025

Potentially-critical

Critical

Hyper-critical

Embedded Systems and the Internet of Things (IoT)

Big Data and metadata continue to grow—with profound consequences. The average rate per capita of data-driven interactions per day is expected to increase twentyfold in the next ten years as our homes, workplaces, appliances, vehicles, wearables, and implants become data-enabled.

Average number of times a human connected person will interact with a connected device in 2025

True Mobile and Real-Time data

By 2025, connected users are expected to number 75% of the world’s population, including previously unconnected groups like young children, the elderly, and people in emerging markets. These astonishing improvements in connectivity require parallel leaps in real-time and mobile data access. By 2025, almost 20 percent of data created will be real-time in nature.

0 %

Real-time data generated by IoT

Machine Learning Changes the Landscape

Thanks to staggering growth in analysable data, cognitive systems will become proactive drivers of action. Technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing and artificial intelligence hold the potential to make data analysis dramatically more frequent, flexible and important to our lives. Current implementations of cognitive systems include driverless cars, facial recognition and virtual customer service representatives—but the potential for new use cases is nearly limitless.

$ 0

Value of the cognitive solutions market in 2025

Security as a Critical Foundation

More data means more vulnerability. As the global datasphere explodes in size, so does gap between the amount of data that should be secured and the amount that actually is. Data requiring security includes corporate financial data, personally identifiable information (PII), and medical records.

Data created in 2025 that should be protected

Amount that should be protected which is actually protected

0 %

Data created in 2025 that should be protected

0 %

Amount that actually will be protected

Exploiting New Opportunities

Dig deeper to learn how to extract more value from your data.
IDC White Paper IDC Infographic