Digital Lifescapes

The worldwide external enterprise storage systems market reached a key point in the first quarter of 2026, and the implications for organizations running Applied-AI initiatives are impossible to ignore. IDC's latest market study reveals that systems grew 22.7 percent year-over-year to $9.2 billion, a dramatic acceleration from the 3.9 percent full-year 2025 growth rate. For enterprise leaders who have spent the past two years prioritizing GPU clusters and server infrastructure while treating storage as a secondary consideration, this data should serve as actionable guidance. The storage bottleneck in AI deployment is no longer theoretical, and the market dynamics now unfolding will directly shape the cost, timeline, and architectural viability of AI programs through at least 2027. Storage Systems Market Development The first quarter of 2026 produced several milestones that demand the attention of any organization with active or planned AI infrastructure investments. All Flash Array...

The semiconductor industry is poised for a significant resurgence in 2025, with artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) as the primary catalysts for growth. According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), the semiconductor market is expected to experience 15 percent growth in 2025, largely propelled by the increasing demand for AI and HPC applications. This surge is not merely a continuation of existing growth trends but represents a paradigm shift in the industry's dynamics. Global Semiconductor Market Development One of the most striking statistics from the IDC study is the projected 24 percent growth in the memory segment. This exceptional increase is primarily attributed to the rising adoption of high-end products such as HBM3 and HBM3e, which are essential components for AI accelerators. The anticipated introduction of HBM4 in the latter half of 2025 is expected to further fuel this ongoing growth trajectory. Me...

New restrictions by the U.S. government will limit the supply of advanced semiconductors to China in the high-performance computing market. As a result, Chinese technology companies must now work with local chip vendors to ease the effects of export bans. Other trends will impact global demand. Global semiconductor revenue is projected to decline by 11.2 percent in 2023, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. In 2022, the market totaled $599.6 billion, which was marginal growth of 0.2 percent from 2021. The short-term outlook for the semiconductor market has deteriorated further. Global semiconductor revenue is forecast to total $532 billion in 2023. Semiconductor Market Development "As economic headwinds persist, weak end-market electronics demand is spreading from consumers to businesses, creating an uncertain investment environment. In addition, an oversupply of chips which is elevating inventories and reducing chip prices, is accelerating the decline of the...

Flash-based, solid-state storage demand has grown rapidly within the IT infrastructure sector, as more CIOs and CTOs adopt this technology. The outlook for the solid state drive (SSD) industry remains strong as units, revenue, and total capacity shipped are all expected to see robust growth. According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), SSD unit shipments will increase at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.1 percent. As a result, SSD vendor revenue is expected to reach $33.6 billion in 2021, growing at a CAGR of 14.8 percent. SSD Storage Market Development The key factors underlying the improved outlook for the SSD market are greater product availability and improved pricing dynamics as the industry transitions to 3D NAND Flash. However, IDC believes the current NAND flash supply constraints will begin to diminish in 2018 and contribute to further price erosion in the overall SSD market. In turn, lower SSD pricing be...

Semiconductors are the heart of information technology and telecommunications systems. Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $343.5 billion in 2016 -- that's a 2.6 percent increase from 2015 revenue of $334.9 billion, according to the latest global market study by Gartner. The top 25 semiconductor vendors' combined revenue increased 10.5 percent, a significantly better performance than the overall industry's growth. However, most of the reported growth resulted from vendor merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. Semiconductor Sector Market Development "The semiconductor industry rebounded in 2016, with a weak start to the year, characterized by inventory correction, giving way to strengthening demand and an improving pricing environment in the second half," said James Hines research director at Gartner . Worldwide semiconductor revenue growth was supported by increasing production in many electronic equipment segments, improving NAND flash memory pric...

The exponential growth of data within the typical enterprise presents a huge challenge for CIOs that must seek new ways to fund and deploy comprehensive storage solutions. Enterprise IT organizations are embracing a range of Flash-optimized architectures as they continue to transform their storage infrastructures, according to the latest market study by 451 Research. Overall, almost 90 percent of these organizations now have some form of Flash-based storage installed in their data centers, while "all Flash" approaches are becoming increasingly standard to support transactional applications. Meanwhile, more enterprise IT leaders are assessing the merits of creating an optimal hybrid storage solution, where object storage platforms are deployed for warm or cold data in active archive applications. These lower-cost solutions can free-up IT budget that was otherwise allocated for legacy SAN and NAS upgrades. Quest for Unified Storage Transformation "Organizations of ...

Flash memory technology advancements, changes in the expectations for new mobile PC capabilities, enterprise server and storage architectures, and hard disk drive (HDD) shortages are all impacting the worldwide solid state storage (SSD) market. Chromebooks and media tablets are just one example of where the requirement for fast start-up and instant-resume access to the client device has raised the bar on design considerations. Informed people simply won't accept the legacy mobile PC constraints. The demand for superior SSD technology has risen as a result. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ), the worldwide solid state storage industry revenue reached $5 billion in 2011 -- that's a 105 percent increase from the $2.4 billion in 2010. IDC expects the SSD market will expand further in 2012 and beyond. "2011 was a record year for the worldwide SSD market, with revenue more than doubling year over year due to strong SSD shipment...

The transition to SuperSpeed USB (also known as USB 3.0) is occurring more rapidly than previously anticipated -- due primarily to quicker integration of the new interface standard into core logic chipsets. Yet, low-/full-speed (USB 1.0) and high-speed (USB 2.0) will remain relevant for the near future as well. Low-/full-speed will remain the communication interface of choice in mice and keyboards, and high-speed will remain in many PC peripheral and consumer electronics (CE) multimedia applications. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , USB will grow at 7.4 percent through 2015 with most of that growth being fueled from SuperSpeed devices which will have an impressive CAGR of 178 percent over that same time period. "Because the throughput of SuperSpeed USB -- 10 times that of high-speed USB -- is not required in some devices, adoption will not initially be as broad as for full- and high-speed USB," says Brian O'Rourke, Research Director at In-Stat. ...

The mobile device applications market has grown rapidly, as a result of the addition of new products, players, and creative business models. This growth will continue, driven mainly by increased smartphone penetration, as well as growth in consumer mobile application libraries. According to the latest market study by In-Stat, mobile application downloads are forecast to reach nearly 48 billion in 2015. "The prevalence of handset touchscreens is a significant development impacting the mobile applications market," said Amy Cravens, Senior Analyst at In-Stat . The projected rapid penetration of touchscreen-enabled devices will allow more users to easily interact with mobile apps, thereby driving growth. Increased on-board memory capacity will also lead to a better user experience. In-Stat's latest market study findings include: - Touchscreens will account for nearly 90 percent of smartphones shipped in 2011, and will increase to nearly 100 percent in the next seve...

Results from a new market study suggest that there are 3.5 billion digital cameras in use across the globe -- and in excess of one trillion personal digital photos stored on PC hard-drives, portable devices and online in the Cloud. However, during the time between a camera is purchased and the owner buys a photo-finished product or uploads a photo to a social networking website, that active camera usage can be difficult to define and quantify. Futuresource Consulting conducted a recent market study of photo-sharing habits in the UK, Germany and France. Their study focused on the images that ultimately have a high personal value to the consumer: those that are actively shared, as opposed to the billions that remain dormant on computer hard drives or memory cards. Survey questions were also included to pinpoint the features that consumers will look for in their next digital camera. The use case study revealed that people are embracing many new ways to share their personal photos...

As I’ve mentioned before, I have utilized low-cost USB flash drives for my video content transport applications. Initially, the largest drive that I used had a 4GB memory capacity. Recently, I’ve been using a much larger 16GB drive and discovered that the benefits go beyond storage capacity. The developers of non-linear video editing software recommend that you store the video content that you are editing on a separate drive, to help improve performance. Typically, that meant adding a new hard disc drive to you PC configuration. Transporting in-progress video content requires that you either use an external hard drive designed for mobile apps, or a USB drive (also known as memory stick or thumb drive). In the past your applications were greatly limited by the USB flash drives capacity – and the relative high-cost per gigabyte of storage. As the cost of high-capacity flash drives decreased, that new development has opened up opportunities to apply these devices for more routine v...

The CES event in Las Vegas featured many new and interesting products, so you may be surprised when I tell you that the introduction of a secure digital (SD) memory card actually caught my attention. You see, I have been using a 128MB standard SD memory card for a long time. I originally used it to store video clips that I could view on my Dell pocket PC, which has an integrated SD card slot. Later I started to use the card with my pocket-sized Kodak digital camera to take short video clips. The standard memory card has some limitations, such as my outgrowing the 128MB memory size for video clips, applications where I needed to shoot photos in quick succession, and the transfer speed between either the digital camera or pocket PC and my notebook computer. Put simply, I was already primed to upgrade to a better memory card. I replied to the vendor who sent me the press release about their new 150x card and requested a sample to test. Weeks passed as the vendor's media relation...