Data is the key resource in the digital economy. Huawei Global Industry Vision (GIV), a report that provides quantitative and qualitative analysis about the future of industry and society, predicts that by 2030, humanity will enter the YB data era.
The ability to store data properly and safely is a pressing problem for our digital age, relying on comprehensive data storage power.
Digital economy unleashes the value in data, and data infrastructure fuels the development of the digital economy. Digital infrastructure comprises three important elements – storage, server, and network – requiring a perfect balance to promote long-term, sustainable evolution.
Data lifecycle first stores and uses collected data to provide raw materials for data processing and application. It is transmitted to the physical world to support the digital operations of the economy and society. Then, the data is returned to the storage devices to improve the accuracy and availability of models and algorithms.
Optimal storage facilitates fast computing and stable networks, which ensures digital infrastructure gives full play to data elements, providing optimal digital hardware products and services, and promoting the healthy and orderly development of new industries.
Digital economy
Digital infrastructure
Direct impact
1 USD storage power directly contributes 5 USD to national economies
Indirect impact
1 USD data storage power indirectly contributes 8 USD to national economies
Induced impact
1 USD data storage power contributes 30 to 40 USD to national economies overall
Direct Impact on the ICT Infrastructure Industry: Faster Economic and Employment Growth
The direct impact is the economic and social value created by digital infrastructure.
Data storage power investment covers purchase and construction of data storage hardware and auxiliary devices, subscription and development of data storage management software, and routine maintenance, which create job opportunities for local population.
What's more, data storage supply enterprises launch internal and external training programs to enable users. This not only improves the quality of local workers but also develop versatile talent to meet the requirements of the digital era.
Data is the key resource in the digital economy. Huawei Global Industry Vision (GIV), a report that provides quantitative and qualitative analysis about the future of industry and society, predicts that by 2030, humanity will enter the YB data era.
The ability to store data properly and safely is a pressing problem for our digital age, relying on comprehensive data storage power.
Digital economy unleashes the value in data, and data infrastructure fuels the development of the digital economy. Digital infrastructure comprises three important elements – storage, server, and network – requiring a perfect balance to promote long-term, sustainable evolution.
Data lifecycle first stores and uses collected data to provide raw materials for data processing and application. It is transmitted to the physical world to support the digital operations of the economy and society. Then, the data is returned to the storage devices to improve the accuracy and availability of models and algorithms.
Optimal storage facilitates fast computing and stable networks, which ensures digital infrastructure gives full play to data elements, providing optimal digital hardware products and services, and promoting the healthy and orderly development of new industries.
Digital economy
Digital infrastructure
Direct impact
The direct impact is the economic and social value created by digital infrastructure.
Data storage power investment covers purchase and construction of data storage hardware and auxiliary devices, subscription and development of data storage management software, and routine maintenance, which create job opportunities for local population.
What's more, data storage supply enterprises launch internal and external training programs to enable users. This not only improves the quality of local workers but also develop versatile talent to meet the requirements of the digital era.
Indirect impact
The indirect impact means the value produced by relevant data production activities with the data storage infrastructure purchased by users.
The deployment of data storage by enterprises improves business operation efficiency, facilitates enterprise development, and improves resource utilization. This kind of investment brings in more revenue for enterprises and improves the working environment.
Induced impact
Data storage power construction underpins digital infrastructure and digital economy development, and the economic activities related to them will eventually affect every one, family, and organization.
Therefore, the induced impact covers all the impact generated by all kinds of government, society, and enterprise data applications across the society. For the US$30–40 national economy growth contributed by every US$1 data storage power, it includes not only GDP growth, but also the improvement of urban governance, enterprise service supply, and citizens' livelihood.
Storage capacity is the core of the data storage power, critical to optimal performance, reliability, and low carbon. This White Paper measures data storage power's level of development from two perspectives: effectiveness and support. The level of development will then be refined to 35 three-level indicators across four directions. This system will help governments and enterprises to comprehensively evaluate their own data storage power development and inform decisions during data storage power construction.
Magnitude
Efficiency
Groundwork
Advancement
Data storage capacity per unit of GDP
This indicator measures whether the storage capacity of a country/region matches its digital economy development degree and the data amount generated.
Total data storage capacity/GDP of
a country or region in a year
(GB/US$ 10,000)
Adequacy of storage capacity
This indicator measures whether the storage capacity of a country/region matches its data amount.
Data storage capacity/Total data amount of a country or region produced in a year
(%)
Growth rate of storage capacity investment
This indicator measures whether a country/region's storage investment matches its data growth and whether this investment supports this country/region to deploy cutting-edge technologies.
Data storage investment of the current year/Data storage investment of the last year of a country or region
(%)
Magnitude
Efficiency
Groundwork
Advancement
Data center storage capacity
This indicator reflects the total storage capacity provided by a data center.
Total capacity of all kinds of storage equipment in a data center
(EB)
Adequacy of storage capacity
This indicator reflects to what extent the data generated in a data center is stored during peak hours.
Storage capacity/Estimated peak data volume of a data center
(%)
Growth rate of storage capacity investment
This indicator measures whether a data center's storage investment matches its data growth and whether this investment supports this data center to deploy cutting-edge technologies.
Data storage investment of the current year/Data storage investment of the last year
(%)
Magnitude
Efficiency
Groundwork
Advancement
Raw capacity
This indicator measures whether the storage capacity meets the storage demands in production activities.
Physical capacity configured for
a storage system
(PB)
Usable capacity
This indicator measures whether the storage capacity meets the storage demands in production activities.
Raw capacity - Capacity for
RAID and metadata
(PB)
Effective capacity
This indicator also measures whether the storage capacity meets the storage demands in production activities.
Usable capacity x (Amount of data written into the system/Occupied capacity)
(PB)
Data storage power indicator matrix for regional development
Data storage capacity per unit of GDP
This indicator measures whether the storage capacity of a country/region matches its digital economy development degree and the data amount generated.
Total data storage capacity/GDP of a country or region in a year
(GB/US$ 10,000)
Adequacy of storage capacity
This indicator measures whether the storage capacity of a country/region matches its data amount.
Data storage capacity/Total data amount of a country or region produced in a year
(%)
Growth rate of storage capacity investment
This indicator measures whether a country/region's storage investment matches its data growth and whether this investment supports this country/region to deploy cutting-edge technologies.
Data storage investment of the current year/Data storage investment of the last year of a country or region
(%)
Data storage power indicator matrix for data center construction
Data center storage capacity
This indicator reflects the total storage capacity provided by a data center.
Total capacity of all kinds of
storage equipment in a data center
(EB)
Adequacy of storage capacity
This indicator reflects to what extent the data generated in a data center is stored during peak hours.
Storage capacity/Estimated peak data volume of a data center
(%)
Growth rate of storage capacity investment
This indicator measures whether a data center's storage investment matches its data growth and whether this investment supports this data center to deploy cutting-edge technologies.
Data storage investment of the
current year/Data storage
investment of the last year
(%)
Data storage power indicator matrix for storage devices
Raw capacity
This indicator measures whether the storage capacity meets the storage demands in production activities.
Physical capacity configured
for a storage system
(PB)
Usable capacity
This indicator measures whether the storage capacity meets the storage demands in production activities.
Raw capacity - Capacity for
RAID and metadata
(PB)
Effective capacity
This indicator also measures whether the storage capacity meets the storage demands in production activities.
Usable capacity x (Amount of
data written into the system
/Occupied capacity)
(%)
The research scope covers 20 countries and regions at different stages of development, and compares their storage power using eight indicators. The results show that these 20 countries and regions all have individual advantages in eight indicators and no country or region shows an overwhelmingly high advantage. A comprehensive data storage power indicator matrix helps identify both advantages and disadvantages in data storage power development, helping public and private bodies accelerate the construction of comprehensive data storage power and
support all-round development of the economy and society.
Magnitude
Efficiency
Groundwork
Advancement
Data storage capacity per unit of GDP
This indicator divides the country/region's total data storage capacity by its GDP. A higher value implies that the digital economy will have a greater impact on GDP and storage capacity will support the development of both the economy and society at large.
Discover how Singapore attracts MSPs and cloud service providers
Calculation Formula
Total data storage capacity / GDP of a country or region in a year
Unit
GB/USD 10,000
Adequacy of storage capacity
This indicator divides the data storage capacity by the total amount of data of a country/region produced in a year, reflecting to what extent the data produced by the country/region in that year was stored and whether the data storage power of a country/region is sufficient to support the development of its economy and society. The total quantity of local data refers to the dataset created, collected, or copied in a year.
Calculation Formula
Data storage capacity / Total amount of data of a
Unit
%
Storage capacity investment growth
This indicator measures the storage investment growth momentum of countries/regions. It uses the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of storage capacity investment in these countries/regions between 2017 and 2019. A high growth rate reflects fast data storage development and high potential of a country/region.
Learn about France's storage power investment growth
Calculation Formula
Data storage investment of the current year / Data storage investment
of the previous year of a country or region
Unit
%
Storage-compute ratio
Storage and compute are both important components of digital infrastructure. Data compute power and data storage capacity in data centers must be balanced to avoid compute power redundancy caused by a shortage of data storage capacity, as this can reduce data processing efficiency.
Explore how North American countries balance the storage-compute ratio
Calculation Formula
Total existing compute power / Total existing
Unit
GFLOPS/GB
Proportion of flash memory
SSDs are performant storage products widely praised in the storage industry. A country/region's investment in SSDs compared to its total investment in data storage power reflects whether its production system is agile and efficient. A higher ratio means SSDs provide strong support for rapid data invocation and exploration.
See how South Africa develops flash storage
Calculation Formula
Total investment in flash storage / Total storage
Unit
%
Coverage of backup and DR
A high level of investment in backup and DR technologies usually means that cyber attacks and accidents can be defended against quickly and effectively, creating high system reliability. The backup and DR coverage rate measures the investment used for backup and DR as a proportion of the total investment used for data storage power.
Find out how Canada increases its backup and DR coverage ratio
Calculation Formula
Backup and DR investment / Data storage capacity investment
Unit
%
Energy consumption per unit of storage capacity
This indicator measures the environmental impact of storage devices by dividing the annual power consumption of the devices by the total storage capacity. A low value indicates low carbon emissions and high contribution to the wider society's energy reduction goals. Due to a lack of statistics on the energy consumption of storage devices in each country/region, this figure is calculated based on the power consumption of data centers.
Learn about the UK's green storage power
Calculation Formula
Energy consumption of storage devices in data centers / Total existing
Unit
kwh/TB
Storage patent share
Storage technology breakthroughs emerge from time to time and must be protected by patents for subsequent commercial use.
In 2020, enterprises and scientific research institutions around the world submitted a total of 328,817 data storage patent applications, among which 286,121, or 85%, were submitted by the 20 countries/regions listed. Enterprises and scientific research institutions headquartered in the US — the country that submitted the most data storage patent applications — submitted 132,242 patent applications.
Discover how the United States develop its data storage power patents
Calculation Formula
Total number of data storage patents granted to enterprises of a
country or region in a year / Total number of data storage patents
granted globally in the same year
Unit
%
Data storage capacity per unit of GDP
This indicator divides the country/region's total data storage capacity by its GDP. A higher value implies that the digital economy will have a greater impact on GDP and storage capacity will support the development of both the economy and society at large.
Discover how Singapore attracts MSPs and cloud service providers
Calculation Formula
Total data storage capacity / GDP of a country or region in a year
Unit
GB/USD 10,000
ranking
country
data
SG
46.70
CR
33.40
USA
33.30
4
GER
33.06
5
SE
32.13
6
CAN
31.64
7
ZA
30.75
8
UK
27.79
9
RUS
25.41
10
CHN
23.52
11
JPN
18.88
12
FR
17.98
13
CL
15.83
14
TUR
14.48
15
CO
14.16
16
THA
12.79
17
IND
11.44
18
BR
10.47
19
SA
9.59
20
MX
9.45
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Adequacy of storage capacity
This indicator divides the data storage capacity by the total amount of data of a country/region produced in a year, reflecting to what extent the data produced by the country/region in that year was stored and whether the data storage power of a country/region is sufficient to support the development of its economy and society. The total quantity of local data refers to the dataset created, collected, or copied in a year.
Calculation Formula
Data storage capacity / Total amount of data of a country or region produced in a year
Unit
%
ranking
country
data
USA
19.4%
SG
18.8%
GER
18.4%
4
SE
17.9%
5
UK
15.5%
6
CAN
14.7%
7
ZA
13.5%
8
JPN
11.8%
9
FR
10.0%
10
CR
9.8%
11
CHN
8.9%
12
RUS
7.4%
13
CL
6.8%
14
TUR
6.3%
15
CO
6.1%
16
THA
5.1%
17
IND
4.6%
18
BR
4.5%
19
SA
4.2%
20
MX
4.1%
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Storage capacity investment growth
This indicator measures the storage investment growth momentum of countries/regions. It uses the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of storage capacity investment in these countries/regions between 2017 and 2019. A high growth rate reflects fast data storage development and high potential of a country/region.
Learn about France's storage power investment growth
Calculation Formula
Data storage investment of the current year / Data storage investment of the previous year of a country or region
Unit
%
ranking
country
data
SG
48.2%
CHN
45.4%
RUS
40.9%
4
FR
28.1%
5
IND
23.1%
6
ZA
22.3%
7
SE
21.1%
8
GER
20.4%
9
CR
18.8%
10
UK
18.5%
11
JPN
17.8%
12
TUR
16.4%
13
SA
10.7%
14
CO
7.1%
15
THA
4.5%
16
USA
3.0%
17
CAN
-0.4%
18
BR
-1.7%
19
MX
-4.0%
20
CL
-6.1%
Load more
Storage-compute ratio
Storage and compute are both important components of digital infrastructure. Data compute power and data storage capacity in data centers must be balanced to avoid compute power redundancy caused by a shortage of data storage capacity, as this can reduce data processing efficiency.
Explore how North American countries balance the storage-compute ratio
Calculation Formula
Total existing compute power / Total existing storage capacity of a country or region
Unit
GFLOPS/GB
ranking
country
data
SG
1:0.7
USA
1:0.9
JPN
1:0.9
4
CAN
1:0.9
5
GER
1:1.1
6
SE
1:1.1
7
CR
1:1.4
8
UK
1:1.4
9
FR
1:1.5
10
CHN
1:2.4
11
RUS
1:2.5
12
ZA
1:3.0
13
TUR
1:3.2
14
BR
1:3.4
15
CL
1:3.8
16
THA
1:4.6
17
IND
1:4.7
18
SA
1:4.8
19
CO
1:5.2
20
MX
1:5.6
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Proportion of flash memory
SSDs are performant storage products widely praised in the storage industry. A country/region's investment in SSDs compared to its total investment in data storage power reflects whether its production system is agile and efficient. A higher ratio means SSDs provide strong support for rapid data invocation and exploration.
See how South Africa develops flash storage
Calculation Formula
Total investment in flash storage / Total storage capacity investment of a country or region
Unit
%
ranking
country
data
CO
59.4%
ZA
52.9%
USA
52.8%
4
RUS
52.4%
5
BR
50.7%
6
SA
48.3%
7
SE
48.2%
8
IND
46.9%
9
UK
46.0%
10
TUR
45.5%
11
MX
43.3%
12
GER
42.6%
13
FR
41.2%
14
SG
40.6%
15
CR
40.4%
16
CL
40.1%
17
CAN
38.1%
18
THA
37.2%
19
JPN
32.0%
20
CHN
24.7%
Load more
Coverage of backup and DR
A high level of investment in backup and DR technologies usually means that cyber attacks and accidents can be defended against quickly and effectively, creating high system reliability. The backup and DR coverage rate measures the investment used for backup and DR as a proportion of the total investment used for data storage power.
Find out how Canada increases its backup and DR coverage ratio
Calculation Formula
Backup and DR investment / Data storage capacity investment of a country or region in a year
Unit
%
ranking
country
data
SG
40.8%
CAN
36.6%
MX
35.0%
4
FR
34.6%
5
THA
34.0%
6
BR
33.9%
7
UK
32.9%
8
USA
32.3%
9
IND
29.5%
10
SE
29.2%
11
GER
28.9%
12
CL
27.0%
13
ZA
24.0%
14
CR
23.4%
15
CO
22.0%
16
SA
21.4%
17
JPN
19.0%
18
RUS
18.0%
19
TUR
17.7%
20
CHN
7.8%
Load more
Energy consumption per unit of storage capacity
This indicator measures the environmental impact of storage devices by dividing the annual power consumption of the devices by the total storage capacity. A low value indicates low carbon emissions and high contribution to the wider society's energy reduction goals. Due to a lack of statistics on the energy consumption of storage devices in each country/region, this figure is calculated based on the power consumption of data centers.
Learn about the UK's green storage power
Calculation Formula
EEnergy consumption of storage devices in data centers/Total existing storage capacity of a country or region in a year
Unit
kwh/TB
ranking
country
data
UK
194
USA
247
CR
283
4
GER
342
5
FR
371
6
SE
376
7
CAN
389
8
JPN
390
9
SG
465
10
CO
531
11
CHN
540
12
CL
547
13
TUR
653
14
ZA
718
15
MX
761
16
THA
928
17
RUS
967
18
IND
1202
Load more
Storage patent share
Storage technology breakthroughs emerge from time to time and must be protected by patents for subsequent commercial use.
In 2020, enterprises and scientific research institutions around the world submitted a total of 328,817 data storage patent applications, among which 286,121, or 85%, were submitted by the 20 countries/regions listed. Enterprises and scientific research institutions headquartered in the US — the country that submitted the most data storage patent applications — submitted 132,242 patent applications.
Discover how the United States develop its data storage power patents
Calculation Formula
Total number of data storage patents granted to enterprises of a country or region in a year /Total number of data storage patents granted globally in the same year
Unit
%
ranking
country
data
USA
40.2%
CAN
14.7%
JPN
6.8%
4
CHN
6.2%
5
GER
2.5%
6
UK
1.5%
7
SE
1.2%
8
IND
0.9%
9
FR
0.6%
10
CO
0.6%
11
SG
0.5%
12
SA
0.3%
13
RUS
0.1%
14
TUR
0.0%
15
CR
0.0%
16
BR
0.0%
17
THA
0.0%
18
ZA
0.0%
19
MX
0.0%
20
CL
0.0%
Load more
Data storage power industries cannot develop without a supportive macro environment. The indicator assessment results show that,
although each country has its own advantages in data storage power, there is room for improvement. It is recommended to develop
the data storage power from three major aspects: policies, support programs, and market development.
Policies
Formulate specific strategies or guidelines specific to the data storage industry; incorporate the storage power measurement system to the specific indicators during planning.
Combine storage with computing and the network during digital infrastructure construction and data security protection.
Support programs
Build storage-centered industrial parks and proof-of-concept zones, as well as support demonstration enterprises and projects.
Improve the widespread availability of public storage resources.
Market development
Governments must take the lead and promote and construct e-government clouds, Smart City projects, and data center infrastructure.
Promote cooperation between enterprises, universities, and research institutes across the entire storage industry chain.
Create an industry talent pool.
Policies
Formulate specific strategies or guidelines specific to the data storage industry. Incorporate storage power measurement systems in the specific indicators during planning.
Combine storage with computing and the network during digital infrastructure construction and data security protection.
Support programs
Build storage-centered industrial parks and proof-of-concept zones, as well as support demonstration enterprises and projects.
Improve the widespread availability of public storage resources.
Market development
Governments must take the lead and promote and construct e-government clouds, Smart City projects, and data center infrastructure.
Promote cooperation between enterprises, universities, and research institutes across the entire storage industry chain.
Create an industry talent pool.
Data Storage Power White Paper
Download the White Paper
Data Storage Power White Paper
Download the White Paper
