Computers are designed to work with information. This is fundamentally different from most machines. Mechanical devices typically deal with physical entities only. Information is more conceptual. Numbers, words, and instructions are good examples of information.
Information is also referred to as data. Incidentally data is a plural noun. One piece of information is referred to as a datum. Generally, computers work with large amounts of information at a time, so you will encounter the term data more frequently than datum.