As the rising digital tide continues to pour into every aspect of our lives, the amount of data it generates is expanding exponentially. In fact, according to recent studies, the vast pool of digital data in existence today was created in the last two years and, with 2.5 quintillion bytes being created each day, the volume of information swirling around the globe is growing at an alarming rate.

This growth comes down to the amount of data being created every second of every day. Ten years ago, aside from the data associated with the growth of social media and the advent of the smartphone, the majority of data was generated by corporations. Now, however, the concept of Internet penetration permeates everything from the Internet of things (IoT), to personal devices, to media. The creation and consumption of all this data fuels the need for bigger and better data centers that can keep the rivers of information contained and flowing smoothly.

From a human standpoint, understanding and processing this flood of information is, of course, a struggle. But from a hardware standpoint, creating and maintaining the infrastructure required to deal with the onslaught is a serious challenge. Meanwhile, the growing need for high-performance computing power to keep that data moving faster and faster shows no signs of abating.