In this presentation, the speaker opens by asking the audience whether more data is needed, prompting a quick poll. He then illustrates the massive scale of global data creation and consumption using zettabyte figures, translating them into the number of cell phones required to store such data (e.g., one zettabyte ≈ 4 billion phones). He charts the growth from 16 ZB in 2015 to an estimated 181 ZB in 2025, noting that the cumulative data in 2025 alone equals roughly 735 billion cell‑phone equivalents, a surge amplified by AI‑generated content. Concluding that the world already possesses abundant data, he argues that the priority should shift from accumulating more data to obtaining more specific, discerning, and meaningful data, echoing a participant’s call for targeted information.
Chapters
3 things that I'm hoping we can agree on. The first one is the question, do we need more data? Is that something that we need? In the chat box, do we need more data? Yes or no? Let me know, and then I will explain what I think. Ah, thank you right off. So I found these slides, and I thought they were so interesting. This is the volume of data that is being created, captured, copied, or consumed worldwide. measured in zettabytes. Now if you have a cell phone anywhere near you, which I'm sure you do, just reach out. You can keep your eyes closed and you'll find it. Your cell phone, if it's a really good one, has about 256 gigabytes of data storage. One zettabyte is 1 trillion gigabytes, which is about— let me just see where the slide is— 4 billion cell phones. So one zettabyte is about 4 billion cell phones worth of data. Think about how many photographs you've got on there and how many podcasts podcasts and everything else. That's a lot of data. That's one single zettabyte. Okay, good point, Johan, specific requested data, we can get to that later. So let's look back in 2015, the world created 16 zettabytes of data. That was about 65 billion cell phones worth of data. In 2017, 26 zettabytes. And then we got some more over here, moving the chat box. In 2020, 64 zettabytes. And then in— come on, slides. There we go. And in 2025, 181 zettabytes of data was created and consumed in 2025. And add on to that everything that came before, that is about 735 billion cell phones worth of data in that one year. And we were only just getting started with all the stuff we're now creating with artificial intelligence. So we do not, we certainly do not need more data. What we do need, as Johan commented, is maybe more specific data, something— we have all the knowledge, we have all the data we need. What we're looking for is discernment and something meaningful.
