Is there still plenty of room at the bottom? Physical challenges for big data

In Richard Feynman’s lecture in 1959 entitled “There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, he speculated on the impact of manipulating and controlling things on a small scale. In particular, he discussed the potential to store large amounts of data in small volumes, giving rise to the title of the talk. I will discuss the evolution of our ability to store data from Feynman’s time highlighting the increasing data storage densities over the last 60 years and the corresponding decrease in cost that has helped drive the modern digital
world. However as many of the critical dimensions approach the nanometer scale, a variety of physical phenomena are placing limits on the increases of the capacity of future storage and processing devices. I will discuss the state of the art of data storage and the potential for continued shrinking of bits. I will then discuss challenges highlighted by Feynman related to energy use of data and the potential for a new generation of information storage, memory and processing technologies to address these challenges.