DATAKAMER

Modern research carries a shadow. Every experiment, every instrument, every breakthrough leaves behind a trail of data — vast, growing, and increasingly challenging to manage. At Datakamer, leaders from a prestigious Ivy League university, a world-renowned research institute, and a world-leading cancer centre described how that shadow is shaping the future of science.

The problem is not curiosity or imagination. The problem is scale. Instruments produce data in torrents: terabytes per run, petabytes per year. Storage systems that once seemed boundless now fill before refresh cycles are complete. Budgets rise linearly while data grows exponentially. And every decision about where data resides — whether to keep it close, archive it, or let it go — has consequences that ripple far beyond IT.

Patterns are emerging. Across these different institutions, the same themes recur: duplication, where identical files are scattered across labs and projects, silently consuming capacity; unpredictability, as new instruments arrive faster than infrastructure can adapt; and governance, as compliance and security requirements demand more rigorous stewardship than ad-hoc systems can deliver.

Yet the most striking theme is not despair but adaptation. Research IT teams are learning to think not just as caretakers of storage, but as architects of culture. They are introducing metadata standards to enable researchers to find and reuse existing content. They are building systems flexible enough to accommodate unpredictable data floods. And they are sharing practices across institutions, turning what once felt like isolated struggles into a collective learning process.

The lesson is clear: data is no longer incidental to research; it is inseparable from it. Instruments define what questions can be asked, but infrastructure defines whether answers can be found. As the shadow of data lengthens, the challenge for institutions is not simply to keep up, but to treat stewardship as part of the scientific mission itself. Discovery will always drive data. Now, data must also drive discovery.

This essay draws on insights shared during a panel at the inaugural Datakamer with IT leaders from a prestigious Ivy League university, a world-renowned research institute, and a world-leading cancer centre.