When the Planet Becomes a Computer
By: Craig Brett
Tags: Humanity, Internet, Data, Future Technology, Science

When the Planet Becomes a Computer

A new study makes a surprising claim about the growth of data

Gerd Altman / Pixabay

Everyone knows the Internet is big, and getting bigger all the time.

It’s adding almost 200 million emails a minute, and 18 million text messages, and half a million Tweets, a quarter million Instagram stories and … well, you get the idea.

So here’s a question. With the Internet growing like this every minute of the day, have you ever wondered how much the Internet weighs? I don’t mean the weight of the hardware like computers and cables and servers. I’m talking about the weight of the information itself.

The answer might surprise you. According to a recent study by physicist Melvin Vopson, the total mass of all the data we produce in a year is equal to the mass of just one E. coli bacteria.

I suppose this is a relief. I won’t have to use the spare bedroom to store my daughter’s Tik Tok videos. And data centers like this one Facebook is currently building in Singapore won’t blanket the planet.

Credit: Facebook

But this is not the end of the story.

Because Dr. Vopson didn’t stop there. He took this finding and crunched some more numbers to see how things play out in the future as the amount of data continues to multiply.

And this is where it gets really interesting.

About 40% of the world’s population still hasn’t come online, and when they do, they will join us at an ever-expanding Internet buffet, where we’re gorging on livestreams, 5G, augmented reality, virtual reality, multi-player gaming, video and new sources of data that are being dreamed up all the time.

According to Dr. Vopson, this tsunami of new information is going to create a problem. If we assume that digital information increases at a rate of 50% a year, it will only take a couple centuries for the mass of all this information to equal half the mass of the entire planet.

In other words, even though all of our new data this year will only weigh as much as a single bacteria, we are actually on track to turn half the planet into digital bits and computer code in roughly 200 years.

“We are literally changing the planet bit by bit.” — Melvin Vopson.

This is a lot to digest. My first thought was, well, maybe information won’t grow 50% a year.

So Google took me to this frequently cited study by the International Data Corp, which says the world’s total data will grow from 33 zettabytes in 2018 to a hefty 175 zettabytes in 2025.

That turns out to be a compound growth of 61% a year.

Credit: IDC

Okay, so what does this all really mean?

For now, nothing, because things don’t get crazy for a while. At 50% growth a year, Vopson says we will have only 1 kilogram of digital information by the year 2070. The law of accelerating returns will only really start having an impact much later.

But at some point, humanity will have to address the problem. Perhaps we learn how to store information differently, or we create computers off-world.

Maybe the moon can be turned into a giant computer — we wouldn’t have to worry about keeping it cool.

Or perhaps Elon Musk is right and we can’t stay on Earth forever. If we are to keep pursuing knowledge and ensure the survival of humanity on a planet that is one asteroid strike away from extinction, then our future is among the stars.

There are no good answers now. But it’s probably time to start asking the question.