How Much Data Does the World Generate?

From smart phones and internet cookies to government agencies and retail sales websites, the world is bursting with data. And according to the latest statistics from Domo, 90% of the stash has been created in the last two years. Currently, the world creates a colossal 2.5 quintillion bytes of data a day. As the world becomes increasingly reliant on technology this number is only set to increase.

“Data Never Sleeps”

Titled Data Never Sleeps 5.0, the statistics come from Domo’s fifth annual infographic that delves into the world’s data generation patterns. Overall, the global internet population has spiked by since 2016 and now encompasses around 3.7 billion humans. The US is one of the biggest users, generating a huge 2,657,700 gigabytes of internet data every minute.

The rise in data is largely fuelled by the rapid growth of internet based media platforms and services. Amazon, YouTube and Netflix are fronting the pack, with the first enjoying record profits of around $258,751 sales per minute. YouTube is streaming more videos than ever, with its users racking up around 4.14 million videos every minute. While Netflix still accounts for an enormous amount of data it saw a slump in 2017, with its viewers watching 20% less hours than in 2016.

Weather, rideshares and social media

So what are data users most concerned with? Unsurprisingly the weather is a big point of interest, with the Weather Channel website flooded with more than 18 million forecast requests, representing a 22% increase from last year’s report. Text messages were another major contributor, with the world sending around 15.2 million every minute. This is a significant jump from the 3.5 million texts that were sent in 2016.

The report also highlighted other key data guzzlers, with ridesharing app Uber filling over 45,000 trips each minute. Spotify added 13 new songs to its inventory every 60 seconds, while Twitter users posted around 456,000 times. Instagram received 46,740 new photos a minute, Google powered around 3.6 million searches and Wikipedia approved 600 new page edits.

Of course, the world’s heavy interaction with the web opens new doors for scam artists, with the internet swamped with over 100,000,000 spam emails every minute.

From medical research to quantum computing, data plays a pivotal role in modern science. For a closer look at the latest developments, ‘Adding Electrons to Synchrotron Imaging Synergies’ takes readers inside Diamond Light Source, the UK’s advanced synchrotron radiation facility.