With 5G, there will be the next shift in scale of data from exabytes to zettabytes

Sameer Bhatia, Director of Asia Pacific Consumer Business Group, and Country Manager for India & SAARC - Seagate Technology

“The emergence of 5G technology promises to facilitate a fundamental shift in how the world uses networks and works with data. Thanks to its speed and greater bandwidth at the edge, 5G will unleash the power of the Internet of Things (IoT), enabling connections by more than a million devices per square mile. The increased power of 5G networks will open up a whole new set of IoT capabilities at the edge for just about every industry, from banking and finance to agriculture and manufacturing.

The business use cases for 5G will range from enhanced logistics  more fuel-efficient self-driving trucks, for example  to more robust video conferencing connectivity. Businesses and consumers will also benefit from the next iteration of 5G-enabled smart cities.

The growth of 5G will facilitate an evolution of IT infrastructure to accommodate the increase in connected devices and in data generated. The creation and consumption of data will be catalyzed by enabling technologies like 5G, which make it cheaper, faster, and easier to get more data from endpoints into processing locations. What we see is the next shift in scale of data, from exabytes to zettabytes.

Having said that, companies in just about every industry sector need to focus their efforts on integrating 5G first into IT infrastructures that are supporting data and processes that are time-sensitive in nature. This is where data at the edge and 5G can add the most immediate value. IT leaders should also be precise and specific about which types of data will be most valuable to their organization in order to configure their technology stack and strategy accordingly.

Finally, it’s critical that IT leaders work in tandem with operations, finance, and other departments in order to ensure a cohesive strategy for managing and using the massive flood of data 5G allows. Companies need to prepare now to efficiently handle an onslaught of 5G data in ways that align with their core mission and strategy.”