Orlando - On Monday, May 18, research firm IDC and information infrastructure firm EMC unveiled the 2009 edition of the Digital Universe study, which showed that despite a slow economy, the amount of digital information created is continuing to grow at a rapid pace.

This study focuses on the pace of digital information created and transmitted over the Internet, phone networks, and airwaves. Notably, in 2008, the size of the digital universe grew to 3,892,179,868,480,350,000,000 - this is the number of new digital information bits created. This indicates the digital universe is growing even faster than expected, despite the global economy's downturn over the past year.

Key findings from the 2009 IDC Digital Universe study signal fundamental shifts in the areas of information growth, security, compliance and management.

- The amount of information created in 2008 is calculated to be 487 billion gigabytes

- The Digital Universe is expected to double in size every 18 months

- In 2012, five times as much digital information will be created versus 2008

Multimedia version of the white paper available here: