Sometime in the next year the world will have about 3 billion users of the internet.  This expansion will continue to increase to about 3.5 billion or more by 2018 as access to new markets continues.  India and southeast Asia will see double-digit growth, assisted by Google, Facebook and others as they create new ways to expand.  North America, which already has highly developed markets, will see the least growth.

In addition to the growth of users, the growth rate of devices connected to the internet will mean that there will be about 30 billion devices connected by 2020.  The prediction of the expansion of the market from around $1.4 trillion to the predicted $3 trillion by 2020 means that every year devices will be hitting the markets around the world.  When added together with the expansion to new markets we could easily see more than 30 billion devices, including cars, homes, and other smart devices.

This growth of users and devices also means that more and more data centers will be built or expanded to support the needs.  And with the expansion of cloud-based resources, those enterprise-sized data centers might be located anywhere around the globe.  Already we are looking to take advantage of cooler climates and cleaner sources of electricity.  With the addition of more robust networks, we can look forward to supporting users and devices no matter where they are with data centers that consume less energy than ever before.