Luigi Federico Signorini: Computing platforms for big data and machine learning

Opening remarks by Mr Luigi Federico Signorini, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy, at the Bank of Italy and Bank for International Settlements Workshop on "Computing platforms for big data and machine learning", Rome, 15 January 2019.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a pleasure to open this workshop and welcome all the participants.

Everyone is aware that modern societies are generating an unprecedented amount of digital information. The latest Data never sleeps annual report, published last June, claims that mankind now generates more than 2.5 exabytes of data every day. The increase is bound to continue: by 2020, an estimated 1.7 MB of data will be created every second for every person on earth.

The enormous wealth of information that has thus become available has great potential value if effectively captured and aggregated. However, it also poses fundamental challenges that are easily overlooked. Let me open this workshop by briefly mentioning three that I think deserve more attention than they usually get.