Interview with Dinesh Nagarajan, Partner, IBM
The last century saw two world wars and several other wars of invasion and retaliation. Nations waged war upon one another for access to resources that would make them more powerful. During World War II, Hitler's invasion of the Caucasus was one such instance, with him going after the rich oil resources there. Winston Churchill's strategic push in North Africa was to hold key port cities in the region so that he could have access to India, which was then a British colony.
Access to oil was a fundamental reason for the wars fought in the Middle East in the second half of the century. However, geopolitical issues are slowly starting to move away from depleting resources such as oil or iron ore, to a resource that keeps growing despite consumption – data. By 2025, the world is expected to be 175 zettabytes rich, of which about 90 ZB will be from the Internet of Things (IoT).
1 zettabyte = 1...