Harnessing the Data Revolution is part of the National Science Foundation's “Big Ideas” framework to guide funding of basic research

Ubiquity of data acquisition and communication devices has led to “data avalanches” in many fields

This is not especially novel. Circa 1800 BCE, roughly contemporaneous with the Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian scribe produced a clay tablet known today as Plimpton 322

Figure 1. Plimpton 322. Obviously there's data inscribed on the clay tablet.