Data Age 2025: The Evolution of Data to Life-Critical Don’t Focus on Big Data; Focus on the Data That’s Big Sponsored by Seagate Data Age 2025: The Evolution of Data to Life-Critical Don’t Focus on Big Data; Focus on the Data That’s Big EXECUTIVE SUMMARY We are fast approaching a new era of the Data Age. From autonomous cars to humanoid robots and from intelligent personal assistants to smart home devices, the world around us is undergoing a fundamental change, transforming the way we live, work, and play. Imagine being awoken and tended to by a virtual personal assistant that advises you on what clothing from your wardrobe is best suited to the weather report and your schedule for the day or being transported by your self-driving car. Or perhaps you won’t need to commute to an office at all as technology will allow you to conjure workspaces out of thin air using interactive surfaces, and holographic teleconferencing becomes the norm for communicating virtually with colleagues. Weekends may involve browsing new furniture through an augmented reality app and seeing how a sofa looks in your living room before placing an order. As you relax on the new sofa, Saturday night’s takeout will be a pizza made by a robot and delivered in record time by a drone. Data has become critical to all aspects of human life over the course of the past 30 years; it’s changed how we’re educated and entertained, and it informs the way we experience people, business, and the wider world around us. It is the lifeblood of our rapidly growing digital existence. This digital existence, as defined by the sum of all data created, captured, and replicated on our planet in any given year is growing rapidly, and we call it the “global datasphere”. In just the past 10 years society has witnessed the transition of analog to digital. What the next decade will bring using the power of data is virtually limitless. While we as consumers will enjoy the benefits of a digital existence, enterprises around the globe will be embracing new and unique business opportunities, powered by this wealth of data and the insight it provides. Extracting and delivering simplicity and convenience from the complexity of many billions of bytes – be it through IDC White Paper © 2017 IDC. www.idc.com | Page 2