Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google once estimated "5 exabytes of information was created between the dawn of civilisation and 2003, but that much is now produced every 2 days."

The accuracy of the estimate is often debated - but the sentiment is clear. We are producing ever increasing amounts of data. And this demand for, and consumption of, data is leading to increased demand for data centres to store all that information.

This article from Goodman Group highlights their innovative use of brownfield sites to build data centres that feed the world's need for what is sometimes described as "the new oil".

How much is an exabyte? The simple answer is "it's a massive amount". Technically speaking an exabyte is one billion, billion gigabytes - which makes it sound even bigger. For perspective, the storage capacity of a smartphone is around 128 GB.

It's mind blowing to try to imagine what that amount of data actually looks like - but one of Goodman's data centre developments can provide a physical representation of the scale and importance of this precious asset.