In Parts 1 and 2 of this post, the author spoke of avatars in the metaverse and which technologies actually constitute the metaverse. This time, he tooks a look at data.

In 2012 we crossed a Zettabyte of annual global data generated by computational processing, storage and as consumed in all ways over the internet.

By 2020 that had grown to 64.2ZB. Now, it’s projected to reach the stratospheric level of 180ZB by 2025. Once this number reaches 1,000ZB it will have also reached the next level, the Yottabyte. This amount of data equates to 1 million Exabytes, or 1 billion Petabytes.

Now, if only we could figure out the average value of a single byte of data, we could more accurately measure the value of the Digital Economy and each of its components by region, industry, and any other relevant parameter. No one’s on an ether romp here. The staid World Bank estimates that the Digital Economy already contributes to more than 15% of global GDP, and in the past decade has been growing at a rate 2.5-times faster than the physical, analog world.

Soon enough, we have to do some flexing and compare our GDP and its Digital Grid with what the beings of other planets in the galaxy have developed. The Kardashev Scale, which dates to 1964 and describes hypothetical civilizations capable of harnessing entire stars and galaxies, seems more real than ever before.

If that proves true, and without the hard technical research reportage on this that it really requires, my hunch is that it is, none-the-less, pretty clearly so

And, If true, what does that mean to the overall climate change mitigation and abatement.

A recently published academic research paper from China, likely the carbon and methane “dirtiest” of the leading global economies (although still paling in comparison to the US over its history that would take a decade or more at current emissions rates to equal the historic damage wreaked globally by the US.

The China paper says the data shows that, despite increasing emissions from the digital infrastructure sector, the impact of digital-first is favorable across all industrial sectors.

Thanks for your time reading, and we’d be delighted to hear your thoughts and, unless you tell us otherwise publish them and credit you and your professional affiliation.

bruce@idc-a.org