Technology

What Is Big Data? Meaning and History of Its Development

What is big data? Learn its meaning, how it developed since the 2000s, and how businesses in Indonesia use it with IoT and AI to decide faster.

A woman wearing a hijab analyzing data on a laptop in an office.
AI illustration

In a digital age, information about valuable assets is essential for making all kinds of decisions. This data can support everyday life and even personal needs. This information is known as big data. Let's look at what big data means and how it developed, including in Indonesia.

What Is Big Data?

Big data is a collection of data or information that is larger and more complex than usual. These data sets come in many different types, so traditional data processing software cannot handle them. The data is constantly updated, which makes it useful as a basis for decision-making.

At its core, big data is a collection of information from many sources that users draw on to make the best possible decisions. It can also be seen as your ability to analyze, collect and understand very large volumes of data that arrive every day.

The concept of big data has grown considerably, especially in today's digital era. This growth is also driven by advances in technology that let people upload huge amounts of data to the internet. All of these connected devices generate information that can be stored.

The History of Big Data

Big data worldwide, including in Indonesia, grew rapidly in the 2000s. People began to realize how much data online media use. An industry analyst named Doug Laney studied this phenomenon. Over time, the concept of big data was adopted and began to be applied to help businesses.

Unfortunately, big data is still not widely understood in Indonesia. Yet its potential is enormous for gathering insights and information, including about the business world. Business owners can collect and process this information for a variety of purposes.

Businesses can use the data to answer their own questions. Examples include questions about saving time, developing products, optimizing product offerings, and even making the final decisions that drive the business.

Today, the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) are two technologies that also support the advancement of big data processing in Indonesia. With them, a person can make fast and accurate decisions. They can also detect problems in a business in real time, so issues can be handled immediately.

That covers the key information about big data you should know. As this overview shows, advances in digital technology and information help people solve many kinds of problems. Big data is also needed as one of the main considerations in decision-making.