While countries across the globe are finding ways to upgrade wireless Internet from 4G to 5G, the inventor of “Artificial Moon”, China is breaking grounds on 6G Technology. China has officially announced its 6G research, with a vision to be ready with it by 2030. Miao Wei, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, confirmed that China will start working on 6G Technology from 2020. Currently, they are on the verge of launching 5G network with ZTE and Huawei involving aggressively. 6G will create a network enabling data transfer in a monumental speed of 1 Terabyte per second, which is 10 to 20 times of 5G promising 5 to 10 GBPS speed. 6G will eventually have the greatest impact on blockchain distributed ledgers technology.
Current Data Generation Landscape
Cisco, in a 2017 report termed the current times as Zettabyte Era. Among other striking facts, it marked that, “Globally, mobile data traffic will increase sevenfold between 2016 and 2021.” By 2021, only mobile data traffic will reach 48.3 exabytes per month. With such stats at hand, the monstrous way data volume is increasing will create an immeasurable amount of data. At present, we are creating 2.5 Quintillion bytes every day. This data accounts for commercial, non-commercial, surveillance and most importantly user-generated information on platforms like Social Media and Online Video. Apart from this, search and service solutions like Google, Uber, and other internet platforms are generating a whopping amount of data every second.
Materialization of this ever-growing ocean of data was possible only because of high-speed internet network connectivity. Surprisingly, more than 80% of data generated on the internet was during the last two years, i.e., 2016 and 2017. It is primarily due to the emergence of 4G and its mass adoption. 4G is a massive push forward towards on-the-go data and interaction between business and billions of users. The question now is: If 4G created a data revolution, what will be the impact of 6G? There are unlimited possibilities, but one of the most impactful impacts will be on data storage.
The Storage Enigma
By the end of 2019, global spending on Data Storage is expected to exceed 51 billion US dollars. Who is spending this amount of money to whom? It is a financial network involving primarily, enterprises like UBER, who does not own data servers and enterprises like Facebook, Amazon, and Google that maintain own data servers and also sells their storage to enterprises as well as general users. Also, there are third-party storage service providers maintaining servers only for commercial purposes, leasing out their server spaces to enterprises. These server are physical data storage platforms, which are highly secured, requiring an uninterrupted power supply, surveillance, and safety from physical damage.
Per an infographics on Forbes, the largest servers are spread over million square foot areas. They are located across the globe in arrays of locations. The largests are still in the US, with 550,000 square foot Microsoft Data Center located in Ireland, the only one outside the US. The largest data center is in Chicago, spread over 1.1 million square foot.
Such servers are clearly the results of a decentralized internet. As data is being owned only by service providers, they are supposed to store and maintain them as well. This is the cost they pay to own public as well as enterprise data.
However, is this model sustainable? How much amount of data will such servers hold in the future? While in the wake of technologies like 5G and 6G, the data eruption will take more magnanimous forms. It will be increasingly difficult to maintain centralized servers, as their sizes will increase exponentially, apart from scattering over more locations across the globe. An answer is Blockchain and Distributed Ledgers.
Here Emerges Blockchain Distributed Ledgers
The scenario of servers and data storage is dim. It is certain that with 5G and 6G, the thrust on servers will be at peak. The only way out of this enigma is decentralization of the internet. Distributing data rather than storing them in physical centralized servers is an effective solution. This will change the data storage ecosystem, preventing further expense and maintenance of large servers. Enterprise Blockchain Distributed Ledgers will emerge as the most appropriate fix as Decentralization is the basis of these ecosystem. In Blockchain Distributed Ledgers ecosystem, data is distributed over the network evenly. Decentralized technology like IOTA is also aligned with emerging traits like IoT.
Apart from creating a distributed landscape of data storage, Blockchain Distributed Ledgers will make users and enterprises own data rather than storing them under the custody of a third party. This will democratize data revolution and also eradicate any possibilities of future bottlenecks involving storage. Against this backdrop, DLT and blockchain development will emerge as the new face of the internet, as enterprises will find the technology effective in handling data of users.
If 4G has revolutionized internet for general users and enterprises. 5G and eventually 6G will revolutionize blockchain distributed ledgers. Thus, internet speed and its impact on data ecosystem will make these technologies inevitable even if, currently, there are bits of skepticism still on existence. However, this does not mean that technology got a panacea. This is only a trait of evolution, promising a grand future of information, data democracy and sustainability.
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