Data is shaping the future of humanity, and some might say in good and bad ways. The production, distribution and consumption of digital data - the so-called data economy - are driving rapid advances and investment in machine learning, artificial intelligence, automation or ledger technology. Individuals and businesses are using data to reduce search and transaction costs and make informed choices. Data is seen as fostering scientific and medical research, making societies more productive, or building models to make sense of incredible complexity. It has been helping to improve the efficacy of public policy, the delivery of public services, and increase transparency and accountability. But it can also show a darker side, which in some of its forms is capable of subjugating entire population groups (country-wide firewalls and stringent government censorship come to mind) or manipulating public opinion as was seen with Cambridge Analytica’s scandal.
The market in numbers
According to the European Commission, the value of personal data – just one class of data covered by its flagship GDPR legislation – was estimated at one trillion euros, or nearly 8% of the EU’s GDP in 2020. The Commission separately valued the combined EU-27 and UK data markets at €84 billion in 2019 (the data market is the aggregate revenue earned by all firms operating in the data economy), which in GDP terms represented about half a percent of the block’s economies. According to a January 2019 UN paper, the data economy in the United States and Japan made up 1 per cent and 0.8 per cent of their GDP respectively, suggesting very significant growth potential in those economies.
The EU Commission estimated the number of EU27 and U.K. Data suppliers at nearly 300,000 in 2019, up 2.3% year on year. Data users amounted to about 700,000, exhibiting growth of 0.6% year on year. Revenues generated by data suppliers increased by 9%, with the U.K. in the leading position, followed by Germany, France and Italy - together accounting for two thirds (66%) of data revenues in the European Union plus the U.K. According to those estimates. The Commission estimated the number of data professionals in the EU27 plus the U.K. at 76 million in 2019, or 3.6% of the total workforce, up 5.5% on 2018.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital disruption in almost every aspect of daily life and business, pushing more traditional firms to accelerate their digital transformation. For instance Zoom (teleconferencing) and Netflix (home video streaming) made giant leaps during the pandemic.
Data is the new gold: the world reportedly produces 2.5 quintillion (2.5 followed by 30 zeros) bytes per day, with (unverified) reports claiming that 90% of all the data in circulation has been produced in the last two years. Google now processes on average over 71,900 search queries every second, which translates to over 6.2 billion searches per day and 2.3 trillion searches per year worldwide.
With the development of IoT, AI, ML, VR, cloud computing, fintech, blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, social networks, established and emerging marketplaces, smart phone-produced data and the rollout of 5G, along with the increase in the number of communication satellites in orbit, the production of data is set to rise as rapidly as cybersecurity concerns such as data breaches mount everywhere. In the face of such threats and challenges the EU is about to pass, implement and harmonise three new directives, with the first focusing on cybersecurity, the second regulating online content (via Digital Services Act or DSA) and the third defining the concept of “fair markets in the digital sector” (via Digital Market Act or DMA).
Segmentation of the market
It can be challenging to draw a map of end use sectors for data production and consumption, which encompasses all kind of data such as transaction data, geo-positioning data, socio economic, macroeconomic, international trade, industrial production, weather data, housing, agriculture, education, health, intellectual property statistics, satellite data, browser search data, market and business data, road accidents, big data, the internet of things (IoT), energy production and use, ledger technology, cryptocurrency exchanges, foreign exchange markets, commodity markets, stock markets or ETF exchanges. Data is simply so ubiquitous and imbedded in countless value-added activities or government activities as to not easily lend itself to easy granulation.
Some of the larger players
Private companies: AC Nielsen, Euromonitor, Mintel, GfK, Gartner, IBIS World, Forrester Research, Bloomberg, Refinitiv, WhatsApp/Meta, Microsoft, Microsoft/LinkedIn, Oracle, Amazon/AWS, Alphabet, Apple, SAP, Salesforce, Informa Plc, Frost & Sullivan, Kantar, Ipsos, Moody’s, S&P Global, S&P Global Platts, S&P Global IHS Markit, Morningstar, Financial Times, The Economist etc
Supra national or trade block data resources: World Bank, IMF, OECD, UN Statistics, UN Comtrade, Eurostat, EU Commission, ECB, FAO, BIS, WTO etc
National resources: INSEE, MinAgri, Istat, Destatis, ONS, BOE, BDF, SNB, CME, LME, LSE, FTSE, NYSE, NASDAQ, CAC 40, Census Gov, USA Gov, US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), CIA, etc
Other or specialist data (eg legal, patents, designs and trademarks, technical, medical, epidemiological, agriculture, shipping, logistics, airliners geo-positioning, satellite data, climate, seismic, housing, sanitation, etc): OECD (Patent statistics), EspaceNet (trademarks and patents), WIPO (IP statistics), Eur-lex (EU legislation), Coinbase Global (blockchain), Crypto and Binance (crypto currency exchanges), PayPal, USDA, USDA WASDE (agriculture), Sentinel (satellite data), GenBank at NCBI, European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), The World Data Centre for Climate (WDCC) etc
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