It's not a particularly great metaphor in these times, especially if you live around the Gulf of Mexico, but I would, perhaps, adapt this metaphor slightly, and I would say that data is the new soil.
To nije pretjerano dobra metafora u ovim vremenima, posebice ako živite oko Meksičkog zaljeva, ali ja bih, možda, malo prilagodio ovu metaforu, i rekao bih da su podaci novo tlo.