IBM on Friday said it would spend US$1.2 billion to build 15 new data centres worldwide to deliver cloud services to businesses.
The data centres will be constructed in Canada, China, Dallas, Hong Kong, India, London, Japan, Mexico City, and Washington, D.C. There are already 12 IBM and 13 SoftLayer data centres worldwide.
SoftLayer – which was acquired by IBM in 2013 – provides on demand IT infrastructure, dedicated services and cloud resources. Since then, it has signed almost 2,400 new cloud clients, IBM said.
IBM said it plans to deliver cloud services from 40 data centres in 15 countries and five continents worldwide this year including Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.
An IBM spokesperson in Australia could not comment on how the global investment will play out in Australia but said it would "build on and leverage IBM Australia's existing strong network of data centres across QLD, NSW, ACT, VIC and SA."
“Last year, IBM made a big investment adding the US$2 billion acquisition of SoftLayer to its existing high value cloud portfolio. Today’s announcement is another major step in driving a global expansion of IBM’s cloud footprint and helping clients drive transformation,” Erich Clementi, senior VP of IBM Global Technology Services said in a statement.
The news follows last week’s announcement of the IBM Watson Group, a new business unit that will develop and commercialise cloud-delivered cognitive and big data innovations.
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