What About Data?
We are living in extraordinary times. There is more data created every year than in all of history, and it is growing by 23% year on year... Insatiable! At the same time, consumers are demanding more... more quickly, more screen time, more video streaming, more pictures, at more crowded locations.
The demands of “Generation More” are unceasing.
The Information Technology & Telecommunications (IT&T) Industry must keep pace to deliver more! More data through fixed networks (Fiber, old Phone lines, Fixed Wireless) and over Mobile Networks (4G, 5G, Satellite networks).
More on Data
How big is a ZettaByte of data?
You may be familiar with data, and have heard of KiloBytes, GigaBytes, even Terabytes. How did we get to ZettaBytes so quickly? A ZettaByte is an amount of data that contains 21 zero’s (1021) and each step up (from left to right) is a multiple of a thousand.
KiloByte 103 -> MegaByte 106 -> GigaBytes 109 -> TeraByte 1012 -> ExaByte 1015 -> PetaByte 1018 -> ZettaBytes 1021 or 147,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes.
What is a “Block” of data?
When we transmit data, it is generally sent in Blocks. A block is 16-bytes or 128-bits in length. Your message, be it an email or a picture or a video is broken into blocks within your device and each block is formatted for transmission.
Encryption Processing Overheads
If your message is being encrypted – which is a common occurrence within your application or on your device or even within the network you are using – it requires a number of processor cycles Per Block to to send. In some cases, we observe compounding encryption where you application encrypts and then your network further encrypts the encryption before sending the message!
The encrypted data is then transmitted across the network – the internet or a private network or Wifi or Bluetooth or satellite to the intended recipient.
The same process – decryption – or reverse encryption occurs at the other side when your friend receives your email, picture or video.
The big picture: Data Growth intersects with Encryption Overheads
If we applied the most common NIST-approved encryption cipher – AES-256-GCM - to the 147ZB of data created in 2024, each block would require 14 CPU cycles to encrypt and a further 14 cycles per block to decrypt. This work alone requires millions of compute-years to process, and enormous energy.
In the IPK® paradigm, we require only 1 single CPU cycle per Block! This equates to a major compute savings (versus AES256-GCM of 13 cycles per block) and a significant reduction in latency that plagues many communications technologies.
As the Data growth is growing at 23% Year-on-Year this problem of encryption overheads will not be going away anytime soon. In fact, it will continue to get worse.
This is why we defined the current paradigm as:
INSANITY. It is only getting worse. More Data. More Security overheads. More Compute. More Energy.
Or IPK® … doing the Same Things DIFFERENTLY, for PROFOUNDLY Different Outcomes.