Opinion | We can mark the day that data actually became the new oil

Last week, two post-covid earth-shaking events took place, almost on the same day. One was a crash in oil prices, with some traders even ready to pay to take oil off their hands. The other was the announcement of Facebook Inc.’s deal to buy nearly 10% of Reliance’s Jio Platforms, the Indian firm’s telecom and internet subsidiary.

While both might seem unrelated, I believe that they signal a single watershed moment. Mathematician Clive Humby said in 2006 that “data is the new oil”. As historians look back, this could be seen as the day that it happened. Oil plunged, data soared.

Why is the Facebook-Reliance Jio alliance so significant? The answer lies in the new golden quadrilateral. India’s original Golden Quadrilateral was a reference to the late Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s ambitious project to link the four corners of India via a highway network to assure connectivity, prosperity and accessibility to vast parts of the country.