As a society, our dependence on the internet continues to grow exponentially. We see it everywhere we go — people staring at screens. It could be a child at a restaurant sitting at a table playing a game or watching a video on a tablet or smartphone, or a person reading the news on their smartphone on the train ride home from work. We are attached to our devices. In fact, a recent Nielsen company study revealed that the average American spends an average of nearly 11 hours each day with smartphones, tablets, TV, radio, computers, and video games. And even those numbers may be underestimated, since Nielsen measures the amount of time spent online on smartphones, but doesn’t count texting or talking on the phone. We are in an age where we are always connected. Few understand, or take the time to realize, how streaming a video or listening to music with such ease is made possible.
For those of us in the business of advising clients and building data center facilities, technology and the disruption that lies around each corner poses many unforeseen challenges. Flexibility in the design of new facilities will be critical. A recent report by The New Jersey Institute of Technology approximated that there are 20 billion smartphones, computers, tablets, and other devices connected to the internet, and by 2020 that number is expected to increase to 30 billion. All of these devices will generate 44 trillion gigabytes of data by 2020. These statistics make it clear that the need for data centers is on the rise. Consider then that there are 3 million data centers currently in the U.S., which is about one data center for every 100 people. With our hunger for data growing, our ever-increasing dependence on the internet, and the desire from both consumers and businesses to have seamless, click-and-play speed, this is just the beginning.