Amount of Data Created Daily (2026)

The world creates about 363 million terabytes (0.36 zettabytes) of data every day.

IDC forecasts that the rate will triple to 12.5 petabytes per second by 2028, when the world will create 393.8 zettabytes of data a year.

Most of that data is copied or consumed rather than newly created. And most of it is unstructured, such as video, images and text.

In this article, we’ll break down how much data is created every day, where it comes from, how big the big data market is, and what the numbers mean for enterprise data teams.

Top Data Creation Statistics

• About 363 million terabytes of data are created every day, based on IDC’s 2023 rate of 4.2 petabytes per second 
• The world will create 393.8 zettabytes of data in 2028 
• About 10% of the data generated each year is newly created or captured, and the rest is copied or consumed (
• 92.9% of the data generated in 2023 was unstructured 
• Video made up about 75% of mobile data traffic at the end of 2025 
• Data centers used about 415 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024.

How Much Data Is Created Every Day?

About 363 million terabytes of data is created every day, based on IDC’s estimate that 4.2 petabytes were generated every second in 2023.

IDC counts data that is newly created, captured, copied or consumed. At the 2023 rate, that’s about 0.36 zettabytes a day.

Here’s how much data is created per day, in different units:

Unit	Data Created per Day (2023 Rate)*
Zettabytes	~0.36
Exabytes	~363
Petabytes	362,880
Terabytes	~363 million
Gigabytes	~363 billion

*Exploding Topics calculation from IDC’s rate of 4.2 petabytes per second, multiplied by 86,400 seconds in a day.

By 2028, IDC expects data to be generated at 12.5 petabytes per second, or about 1.08 zettabytes a day.

For enterprise data teams, a near tripling in five years may be seen as a reason to plan storage and analytics capacity well ahead of demand.

How Fast Is the Amount of Data Growing?

The world will create 393.8 zettabytes of data in 2028, IDC forecasts, 9.8 times the 2018 level.

Only about 10% of the data generated each year is newly created or captured. The rest is copied or consumed.

Here’s a breakdown of IDC’s Global DataSphere figures:

Measure	2023	2028 (Forecast)
Data generated per second	4.2 petabytes	12.5 petabytes
Data generated per day	~0.36 zettabytes	~1.08 zettabytes
Share of data that is unstructured	92.9%	82.3%
Data generated per year	-	393.8 zettabytes

Note: IDC’s full 2025 to 2029 forecast is paywalled, so these figures come from its latest free public release.

What Types of Data Are Created?

Figures from the Ericsson Mobility Report show that video makes up about 75% of all mobile data traffic.

Mobile networks carried more than 220 exabytes of data a month in the second quarter of 2026, up 23% from a year earlier. That’s more than 7 exabytes a day.

Most of this data is unstructured. IDC estimates that 92.9% of the data generated in 2023 was unstructured, such as video, images, audio and text. However, it expects that share to fall to 82.3% by 2028.

How Much Data Does Streaming Use?

A Netflix stream in Ultra HD uses up to 7 GB of data an hour, according to Netflix.

Here’s how much data popular streaming services use per hour:

Service and Quality	Data Used per Hour
Netflix, standard definition	Up to 1 GB
Netflix, high definition	Up to 3 GB
Netflix, Ultra HD	Up to 7 GB
YouTube, 4K (at the 20 Mbps recommended speed)	Up to ~9 GB*
YouTube, 1080p (at the 5 Mbps recommended speed)	Up to ~2.25 GB*
Spotify, Very high quality (320 kbit/s)	~144 MB*

*Exploding Topics calculation from YouTube’s recommended connection speeds and Spotify’s published bitrate.

How Many Searches and Emails Happen Every Day?

Google handles more than 5 trillion searches a year or about 14 billion a day.

In its email statistics report, the Radicati Group forecast that about 376 billion emails would be sent and received every day in 2025.

How Many Data Centers Are There?

According to Pew’s analysis, the US has more than 3,000 operational data centers.

Most planned US data centers are in rural areas. Pew counts 67% of planned sites, including those under construction or land banked, as rural.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that data centers worldwide used about 415 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, about 1.5% of global electricity use. The IEA projects that this will more than double to about 945 terawatt-hours by 2030.

The rising data center power use is a potential cost and availability risk for cloud and AI workloads.

How Big Is the Big Data Market?

Worldwide spending on big data was about $354 billion in 2024.

In its spending guide, IDC forecasts that big data spending will reach about $644 billion by 2028, growing about 16.8% a year.

Gartner forecasts fast growth for AI: worldwide AI spending is expected to reach about $2.7 trillion in 2026, up 49.5% from 2025.

For more on AI adoption, see our AI statistics.

Do We Really Create 2.5 Quintillion Bytes of Data a Day?

The often-quoted figure of 2.5 quintillion bytes (2.5 exabytes) of data a day has been attributed to IBM. The statistician Thomas Lumley asserts that this number was already being discussed in 2012.

Based on IDC’s 2023 rate, the world now generates about 363 exabytes a day, about 145 times that figure.

However, the two numbers aren’t directly comparable. IDC counts copied and consumed data, and only about 10% is newly created or captured.

How Many People Are Online?

There were 6.04 billion internet users at the start of October 2025, 73.2% of the world’s population.

The number of internet users grew by 294 million in a year, partly because of revised data for India.

What Does Search Data Say About Data Trends?

Exploding Topics data shows that searches for “synthetic data” grew 383% between October 2024 and September 2026.

Here’s a breakdown of monthly searches for fast-growing data topics:

Search Term	October 2024	Peak (Excluding April and May 2026)	September 2026	Change Since October 2024
Vector database	5,588	79,838 (February 2026)	49,500	+785%
Synthetic data	1,675	27,093 (June 2026)	8,100	+383%
Data lakehouse	4,634	18,746 (March 2026)	9,900	+113%

Some related concepts like "vector database" also grew 785% over the same period. Similarly, searches for “data lakehouse” grew 113%.

For enterprise data teams, these searches point to growing interest in the tools that store and prepare data for AI.

What’s Next for Data Creation?

IDC forecasts that data generation will reach 12.5 petabytes per second by 2028, and the IEA expects data center electricity use to more than double by 2030.

For more on where data work is heading, see our data science trends and computer science trends.

How We Compiled These Statistics

We used IDC’s latest public Global DataSphere and spending figures, the Ericsson Mobility Report, the IEA, DataReportal, Pew Research Center, company help pages and Exploding Topics search data. Daily figures are calculated from IDC’s per-second rates, and streaming figures marked * are calculated from published bitrates. Figures are as of October 30, 2026.

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