# Research Trends, Enabling Technologies and Application Areas for Big Data
## 5 Trends in Big Data Research  
Table 1 and Figure 1 show the number of Big Data research publications per year for the years 2012-2021 (see Section 2.2 for details on how the search was performed). It is clear that the research interest increased significantly during the last decade. However, the number of publications seemed to be rather stable during the last three years. The search was performed on 25 May 2022. Due to delayed updates of the Scopus database, the final number of publications for 2021 will probably be a bit higher than what is shown in Table 1.  
Table 2, along with Figures 2 and 3, shows the number of research publications per year for the seven application areas for Big Data that we identified. Figures 2 and 3 show that the research publication totals for the Big Data application areas manufacturing, finance, agriculture or forestry and smart cities are increasing, whereas the research publication totals for the Big Data application areas of social media, image processing and telecommunication are decreasing.  
Table 3, along with Figures 4 and 5, shows the number of research publications per year for the six enabling technology areas for Big Data that we identified. Figures 4 and 5 show that the research publication totals for the Big Data-enabling technologies of deep learning and edge or fog computing are increasing, whereas the research publication totals for the other Big Data-enabling technologies are decreasing or at least seem to have passed their peak values.  
Figure 3: The number of research publications per year for the Big Data application areas of telecommunication, smart cities, image processing and agriculture or forestry.  
Figure 2: The number of research publications per year for the Big Data application areas manufacturing, social media and finance.  
Figure 4: The number of research publications per year for the Big Data-enabling technologies deep learning and cloud computing.  
Figure 5: The number of research publications per year for the Big Data-enabling technologies of high-performance computing or supercomputing; parallel processing, distributed processing or GPU; storage systems, database systems or data lakes and edge computing or fog computing.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Enabling Tech.\(\backslash\)Year** & **2012** & **2013** & **2014** & **2015** & **2016** & **2017** & **2018** & **2019** & **2020** & **2021** \\ \hline High-Performance & & & & & & & & & \\ Computing or & 69 & 203 & 382 & 753 & 1009 & 1012 & 1105 & 1378 & 1051 & 1008 \\ Supercomputing & & & & & & & & & \\ \hline Deep Learning & 0 & 7 & 29 & 143 & 388 & 835 & 1674 & 3195 & 3958 & 4434 \\ \hline Cloud Computing & 147 & 635 & 1078 & 2020 & 2880 & 3149 & 3594 & 4223 & 3644 & 3704 \\ \hline Parallel Processing, & & & & & & & & & \\ Distributed Processing or GPU & 81 & 289 & 480 & 858 & 1373 & 1187 & 1239 & 1685 & 1221 & 867 \\ \hline Storage Systems or & & & & & & & & & \\ Database Systems or & 115 & 411 & 639 & 1017 & 1214 & 1312 & 1313 & 1452 & 1187 & 1035 \\ Data Lakes & & & & & & & & & \\ \hline Edge Computing or & & & & & & & & & & \\ Fog Computing & 0 & 3 & 5 & 25 & 81 & 167 & 501 & 744 & 957 & 1123 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 3: The number of research publications per year for the six enabling technologies for Big Data that we identified.  
Table 4 and Figure 6 show the number of research publications in Big Data per year for different geographic regions. Figure 6 shows that two geographic regions are dominating: USA and China. The figure also shows that the number of research publications in Big Data from China is increasing, whereas the number research publications in Big Data from the USA and the rest of the world is decreasing. Today, China is clearly the part of the world where most research in the area of Big Data is conducted.