Digital data is data that represents other forms of data using specific machine language systems that can be interpreted by various technologies. Over the past decade the quantity of digital data has expanded massively as more and more systems and processes become digitized. Just how big is the data likely to become?
This is a question posed by research scientists, who maintain that the digital progress is leading to alterations to Earth’s matter, transforming it from physical atoms to digital information. It is now possible to discuss digital data as the fifth state of matter, alongside liquid, solid, gas and plasma, as Phys.org reports.
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The consequences of this are considerable, according to the researchers. Computer models predict that humanity will reach a place of full saturation. Here, digital data points will exceed the population of atoms on Earth. Society, at all levels, will, as researchers write be “mostly computer simulated and dominated by digital bits and computer code.”
After this, we will no longer be able to continue to produce data at the same rate based on current data storage densities. Since the number of data bits generated each year and considering the size of a data bit compared with an atom, and factoring in a rate of growth of 50 percent per year, then the quantity of data bits would equal the number of atoms on Earth in about 150 years.
In 130 years the power required to maintain all of the digital information would match all the power currently produced on Earth. By 2245,50 percent of the Earth’s mass would become digital information mass and we hit saturation point in terms of generating any more data.
The digital data prediction is published in the journal AIP Advances. The research study is titled “The information catastrophe.”
