The world we are living in is highly advanced in nature, and the rise in technology has drastically surged the availability of digital content. Now, a new research report has suggested that digital content is on the way to equal half of the earth's mass by 2245.
The research led by Dr. Melvin Vopson, a senior lecturer at the U.K.'s University of Portsmouth sheds light on the science of information creation, and the demands of storing huge amount of digital data.
Information Catastrophe Awaits Planet Earth
According to Vopson, this rise in digital content could result in a phenomenon called information catastrophe, and it will be very similar to the challenges humans are facing right now that include climate change, environmental issues, food scarcity, energy problems, etc.
"Assuming the current growth trends in digital content continue, the world will reach a singularity point in terms of the maximum digital information possibly created and the power needs to sustain it, called the information catastrophe," wrote the researcher in the study report which is now published in AIP Advances.
Incredible Growth of Digital Bits
During the study, researchers examined the growth of digital bits, the basic unit used to measure data in computers. At one singularity point, there could be more digital bits than atoms in this world. It will be at this time that the digital information production in the planet will consume almost the entire planetary capacity.
According to Vopson, in another 130 years, the power needed to sustain digital information creation would equal all the power presently produced on planet earth. The new research report predicted that half of the earth's mass could be digital content by 2245. The researcher also noted that the current coronavirus pandemic has also increased the amount of digital content that is being produced.
"According to IBM and other big data research sources, 90% of the world's data today has been created in the last 10 years alone. In some ways, the current COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this process as more digital content is used and produced than ever before," added Vopson, Science Daily reports.
