Abstract
Currently, we produce ∼1021 digital bits of information annually on Earth. Assuming a 20% annual growth rate, we estimate that after ∼350 years from now, the number of bits produced will exceed the number of all atoms on Earth, ∼1050. After ∼300 years, the power required to sustain this digital production will exceed 18.5 × 1015 W, i.e., the total planetary power consumption today, and after ∼500 years from now, the digital content will account for more than half Earth’s mass, according to the mass-energy–information equivalence principle. Besides the existing global challenges such as climate, environment, population, food, health, energy, and security, our estimates point to another singular event for our planet, called information catastrophe.
Highlights
Since the first discovery of the transistor in 1947 and the integrated microchip in 1956, our society has undergone huge technological developments
We examine the physics of information creation and we determine that, assuming the current growth trends in digital content continue, the world will reach a singularity point in terms of the maximum digital information possibly created and the power needs to sustain it, called the information catastrophe
IBM estimates that the present rate of digital content production is about 2.5 quintillion digital data bytes produced every day on Earth (2.5 × 1018 bytes or 2.5 × 109 Gb)
Summary
Since the first discovery of the transistor in 1947 and the integrated microchip in 1956, our society has undergone huge technological developments. In just over half a century since the beginning of the silicon revolution, we have achieved unprecedented computing power, wireless technology, Internet, artificial intelligence, and multiple technological advances in display technologies, mobile communications, transportation, and medicine, to name a few. None of these could have been possible without mastering the ability to create and store large amounts of digital information. We can estimate the current annual rate of digital bits production on Earth to be staggering, Nb = 7.3 × 1021 bits.
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