IBM to pour $1.2 billion into new data centres

IBM will invest more than US$1.2 billion (A$1.4 billion) to build up to 15 new data centres across five continents to expand its cloud services and reach new clients and markets.

The new cloud centres will be in Washington DC, Mexico City, Dallas, China, Hong Kong, London, Japan, India and Canada, with plans to expand in the Middle East and Africa in 2015.

IBM said the investment will bring up its data centre count to 40 this year and double cloud capacity for SoftLayer, which leases online storage space to companies and was acquired by IBM last year for US$2 billion.

"This global expansion is aimed at accelerating into new markets based on growing client demand for high-value cloud," the company said in a statement.

IBM said the global cloud market is estimated to grow to US$200 billion by 2020.

It also said it will use web hosting technology from SoftLayer for the delivery of its cloud services. IBM said since its acquisition of SoftLayer, the business has added 2400 new clients.

Get your tickets to the Australian Data Centre Strategy Summit at the Gold Coast Marriott on March 18-20. VIP and one-day event passes are still available.