The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information
Abstract
We estimated the world’s technological capacity to store, communicate, and compute information, tracking 60 analog and digital technologies during the period from 1986 to 2007. In 2007, humankind was able to store 2.9 × 1020 optimally compressed bytes, communicate almost 2 × 1021 bytes, and carry out 6.4 × 1018 instructions per second on general-purpose computers. General-purpose computing capacity grew at an annual rate of 58%. The world’s capacity for bidirectional telecommunication grew at 28% per year, closely followed by the increase in globally stored information (23%). Humankind’s capacity for unidirectional information diffusion through broadcasting channels has experienced comparatively modest annual growth (6%). Telecommunication has been dominated by digital technologies since 1990 (99.9% in digital format in 2007), and the majority of our technological memory has been in digital format since the early 2000s (94% digital in 2007).
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References and Notes
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Science
Volume 332 | Issue 6025
1 April 2011
1 April 2011
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Copyright © 2011, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Submission history
Received: 29 November 2010
Accepted: 1 February 2011
Published in print: 1 April 2011
Acknowledgments
We thank the Information Society Program of United Nations ECLAC (in Chile) for its support; T. Coughlin, J. McCallum, D. Franz, M. Gonzalez, C. Vasquez, L. Adleman, M. Castells, and the statisticians from UPU (Universal Post Union) and ITU (International Telecommunications Union); as well as numerous colleagues who motivated us by doubting the feasibility of this undertaking.
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