Billions of IoT Devices to Produce 79.4 Zettabytes of Data in 2025, Says IDC

The market intelligence firm, International Data Corporation (IDC) has predicted that 79.4 zettabytes (ZB) of data will be generated by 41.6 billion connected IoT devices in 2025.

With the growth of IoT devices, the quantity of generated data also increases. These data are further divided into small and large datasets. Small and storming data imply a single metric of the health of a machine while large datasets are produced through video surveillance cameras employing computer vision.

Over the duration of 2018 to 2025, the connected IoT devices will witness a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.7 percent, projects IDC. The data generated by video surveillance, medical, industrial and other applications will also increase and hence generate a hefty amount of data over time.

Carrie MacGillivray, group vice president, IoT, 5G, and Mobility at IDC quoted, "As the market continues to mature, IoT increasingly becomes the fabric enabling the exchange of information from 'things', people, and processes. Data becomes the common denominator – as it is captured, processed, and used from the nearest and farthest edges of the network to create value for industries, governments, and individuals' lives."

She further added, "Understanding the amount of data created from the myriad of connected devices allows organizations and vendors to build solutions that can scale in this accelerating data-driven IoT market."

Other experts too believe that the world is at the quest of digitizing itself and produce a global DataSphere. The surrounding is turning more sensorised, bringing varying levels of intelligence and IoT is an inseparable part of this phenomenon.

Other than industrial and automotive use of connected things, IDC expects to observe the adoption of IoT in household and wearable devices as well.

Aerial drones whose adoption is still in infancy today, possess great potential to reach out to remote areas. The device also holds the capability of generating lots of data using the camera.

Industrial and automotive sectors are also expected to witness the fastest data growth rates from 2018-2025 with CAGR of 60 percent. Such rich data generated through IoT devices include audio, image and video. On one hand, where AI and analytics are zooming into the further possibilities of these data, data per device is growing more rapidly than data per video surveillance camera.