The datasphere (information accumulated in the world) is expected to increase by 300% in 2025 and there is not enough space in the cloud to house that gigantic amount of information. And this means that the world is immersed in a global crisis of storage of data.

The stark warning comes from scientists at Aston University, who are busy developing a plan that does not involve building more servers, which currently consume 1.5% of the world’s electricity per year.

To address this issue, the team is developing a new technology to provide channel surfaces less than five nanometers wide. That is, about 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

We are increasingly facing the risk of the so-called crisis of storage of data, so it is imperative to improve data storage solutions to keep up with the demands of the modern world.

The world lives a digital lifestyle that generates vast amounts of data

According to a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC), “the consequence of this growing reliance on data will be an endless expansion in the size of the Global Datasphere“.

The report shows that the estimate of zettabytes (ZB), a measure of digital storage capacity, in 2019 it was only ZB 45, but by 2025 it is planned to rise to ZB 175. One zettabyte equals one trillion gigabytes.

“If we could store the entire global datasphere on single-layer Blu-ray discs that could take us to the Moon 23 times or circle the Earth 222 times“, explains IDC in the report. The spectacular increase is imminent, and Derry and his team hope to find a solution before time runs out.

Dr Amit Kumar Sarkar, who has just joined the team from Aston University, believes that the future lies in advanced polymer chemistry as a way to increase the amount of data that can be stored on today’s storage media. Like graphene hard drives.