KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 24): Researchers at a British University have cautioned that servers around the world could soon face a massive data storage crunch.

In a statement earlier this week, the researchers from Aston University said the global datasphere is predicted to increase by 300% within three years.

They said all the data used is stored on banks of servers housed in huge warehouses, or data centres.

“In the next three years the total amount of data in the world — the global datasphere — is predicted to increase by 300%.

“However, as data centres account for around 1.5% of the world’s annual electricity usage it has been recognised that building more huge warehouses is not sustainable,” they said.

Aston University has received funding in excess of £200,000 to explore solutions to this problem.

The project is part of the UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) 2022-2027 strategy, and the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

Aston University said experts will develop a new technology to provide surfaces with channels less than five nanometres in width, around 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

It said this will enable increased capacity in data storage devices to cope with the mind-blowing amount of data produced around the world each day.

Dr Matt Derry, lecturer in chemistry within the University’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, is leading the project which is in collaboration with Specialist Computer Centres (SCC), the science facility Diamond Light Source and Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania.

Derry said simply building new data centres without improving data storage technologies is not a viable solution.

“Increasingly we face the risk of a so-called data storage crunch and improved data storage solutions are imperative to keep up with the demands of the modern world.”

Derry will be working with Dr Amit Kumar Sarkar, a researcher in materials chemistry, who is being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Sarkar said the scientists will be exploiting advanced polymer chemistry as a pathway to increase the amount of data that can be housed on storage media.

“Increasing the efficiency of existing technologies will significantly reduce the need for costly, environmentally damaging construction of new ‘mega data centres’.

“The next three years will be crucial. The global datasphere is predicted to increase to 175 zettabytes, with one zettabyte being approximately equal to one billion terabytes,” he said.