04 June 2025
For much of the 20th century, corporate power was measured in barrels of oil, tons of steel, or miles of rail. However, over the last 50 years, the foundation of economic value has shifted dramatically. Today, data is not just a byproduct of digital activity but a core driver of corporate valuation, competitive advantage, and national strategy. This transformation has quietly reshaped global investment markets, and the ascent of data as a strategic asset now rivals the importance of oil in previous eras.
In the 1970s, the world's most valuable companies were industrial giants: IBM, Exxon, and General Motors. Their market dominance was built on scale, infrastructure, and tangible capital. However, as computing advanced and software took centre stage in the 1990s and early 2000s, the world began to notice a shift. Microsoft, Oracle, and Intel rose in prominence, showing that code and processing power could outperform pipelines and factories.
Then came the true revolution: platforms that thrived not on selling software or hardware but on collecting, processing, and monetising data. Fast-forward to 2025, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, and Meta dominate the global market cap leaderboard, commanding trillions in value primarily because of how effectively they gather, use, and protect data.
Unlike physical assets, data is non-rivalrous: it can be used in multiple ways by multiple systems simultaneously. This makes it uniquely scalable and feeds into artificial intelligence models, customer insights, logistics, risk modelling, and more. As storage costs have plummeted from hundreds of thousands of dollars per gigabyte in the 1980s to less than a cent today, the economic viability of capturing and using data has grown exponentially.
Cloud computing, another critical enabler, has grown from a $10 billion niche in 2010 to an estimated $913 billion global market in 2025. This infrastructure underpins the data economy, allowing firms of all sizes to store, compute, and analyse at scale. Meanwhile, the big data and analytics market is now projected to be worth over $400 billion, underscoring the value of extracting actionable insights from the digital exhaust of human and machine activity.
Data-rich firms have redefined business models: Uber owns no cars, Airbnb has no properties, yet both leverage data to orchestrate value chains. Meta monetises attention through behaviour analytics, and even traditional manufacturers now deploy sensors and real-time analytics to gain an operational edge.
Investors have taken note, and data-centric businesses are trading at premium multiples not just for their revenue but for the scale and exclusivity of their datasets. Increasingly, data isn’t just a byproduct of business; it’s the moat and protector.
While the global tech giants dominate headlines, the UK is actively carving out its own niche in the data economy. We have the rise of data-rich FinTech hubs in London and Manchester and the global leadership of Arm Holdings in chip design - the UK's value chain is increasingly data-powered.
The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has also transformed into a significant data and analytics business following its acquisition of Refinitiv. Meanwhile, UK government initiatives around Smart Data and the Digital Markets Bill reflect a growing national commitment to enabling innovation and regulating digital dominance.
For UK-based investors, this means opportunities across a vast frontier: data infrastructure, privacy technologies, AI operations, and sector enablers, not just Big Tech equity exposure.
As night follows day, with value comes oversight. Data’s strategic nature has prompted regulatory reactions from GDPR to the UK’s own evolving data protection framework (post-Brexit). Debates around cross-border flows, privacy rights, and monopolistic behaviour are no longer fringe concerns; they’re boardroom and policy priorities.
Regulators are asking whether the concentration of data control skews competitive fairness, and investors must now weigh data governance as both a risk and a source of resilience.
Data will underpin the next wave of innovation, from quantum computing to personalised medicine and smart cities. Governments treat fibre networks, secure cloud storage, and ethical AI frameworks as critical infrastructure. UK policy, too, is evolving in that direction, with sovereign data strategies emerging alongside R&D investments.
In 2025, the question isn’t whether data is valuable; it’s how well that value is governed, distributed, and capitalised. As investors look to navigate an economy built less on extraction and more on information, data is no longer just the new oil.
It’s the new infrastructure, and the UK is well positioned to help build it.
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