Yottabyte

A yottabyte is sometimes referred to as a "theoretical" unit of data, because the world has yet to accumulate such a huge amount of digital information — in theory, there could be a yottabyte's worth of data, but it doesn't exist. Some call it "yodabyte" in reference to the Star Wars character, perhaps to underline an element of fiction.

And yet the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) is already talking about the next size up — a brontobyte, or as Google's conversion calculator as it, a "hellabyte".

So, how much data is a yottabyte?

If the smallest unit memory is a byte, a yottabyte is a septillion bytes. That's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.  Or 24 zeros!

Let's scale that up a little more slowly:

8 bits = 1 byte

1,000* bytes = 1 kilobyte

*It's actually 1,024 bytes but we've rounded-down to simplify the math

1,000 kilobytes = 1 megabyte = 1,000,000 bytes

1,000 megabytes = 1 gigabytes = 1,000,000,000 bytes

1,000 gigabytes = 1 terabytes = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes

1,000 terabytes = 1 petabytes = 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes

1,000 petabytes = 1 exabytes = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes

1,000 exabytes = 1 zettabytes = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes

1,000 zettabytes = 1 yottabytes = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes

Or, as the University of Delaware once posited: a yottabyte is "as much information as there are atoms in 7,000 human bodies." And how many atoms are there in one human body? About a billion-billion-billion. It's unfathomable.

Not only are these huge amounts of data unfathomable, but we've also yet to make them a reality. At time of writing in 2024, estimates suggested that the global "datasphere" — the amount of data created and held in one system, such as, in this case, the whole world — will be between 51 and 175 zettabytes by 2025 — that's between 5-17% of a yottabyte.

However, the trend is rising, especially with the growth of artificial intelligence in the early 2020s. In 2021, an executive partner at IBM wrote a blog post suggesting that production environments "running ten thousands of algorithms at the same time to get the insights which drives value" for smart AI applications could need data "up to petabyte levels." (za/fs)

  

Sources:

What is a yottabyte? (IONOS) https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/websites/web-development/what-is-a-yottabyte/ (accessed May 13, 2024)

Introduction to Draft Resolution C On the extension of the range of SI prefixes 17 November 2022 (BIPM) https://www.bipm.org/en/search?p_p_id=search_portlet&p_p_lifecycle=2&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_resource_id=%2Fdownload%2Fpublication&p_p_cacheability=cacheLevelPage&_search_portlet_dlFileId=77823884&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_javax.portlet.action=search&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_source=BIPM&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_p_p_lifecycle=1&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_formDate=1715590350402&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_query=yottabyte (accessed May 13, 2024)

Extension to the range of SI Prefixes: Update to the CCU September 2021 (National Physical Laboratory / BIPM) https://www.bipm.org/en/search?p_p_id=search_portlet&p_p_lifecycle=2&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_resource_id=%2Fdownload%2Fpublication&p_p_cacheability=cacheLevelPage&_search_portlet_dlFileId=59234908&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_javax.portlet.action=search&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_source=BIPM&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_p_p_lifecycle=1&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_formDate=1715590350402&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_query=yottabyte (accessed May 13, 2024)

Atoms and their sizes (American Museum of Natural History) https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/scales-of-the-universe/atoms (accessed May 13, 2024)

Data volumes (University of Delaware) https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~amer/Table-Kilo-Mega-Giga---YottaBytes.html (accessed May 13, 2024)

Annual size of real time data in the global datasphere from 2010 to 2025 (statista) https://www.statista.com/statistics/949144/worldwide-global-datasphere-real-time-data-annual-size/ (accessed May 13, 2024)

Consultative Committee for Units (CCU) Report of the 25th meeting (21-23 September 2021) to the International Committee for Weights and Measures https://www.bipm.org/en/search?p_p_id=search_portlet&p_p_lifecycle=2&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_resource_id=%2Fdownload%2Fpublication&p_p_cacheability=cacheLevelPage&_search_portlet_dlFileId=68201438&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_javax.portlet.action=search&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_source=BIPM&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_p_p_lifecycle=1&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_formDate=1715598165582&_search_portlet_priv_r_p_query=yottabyte (accessed May 13, 2024)

What is a yottabyte? (Backblaze) https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-is-a-yottabyte/ (accessed May 13, 2024)

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Written and edited by: Zulfikar Abbany (za), Fred Schwaller (fs)