IBM to Open Second Data Center in Mexico

US technology giant IBM has unveiled a plan to open 15 new data centers, including one in Mexico, in a bid to tap the growing demand for cloud services around the world. This will be IBM’s second data center in Mexico after the company launched a “smart data center” in Guadalajara in 2012 at a cost of about $30 million.

IBM, which expects to achieve $7 billion in annual cloud revenue, is counting on data centers to boost its revenue. Over the past six years, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 15 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives.

Last year came its biggest acquisition of all, when it bought SoftLayer for $2 billion.  IBM has now set aside $1.2 billion to further widen and bolster its data center assets across the world. For now, SoftLayer runs 13 data centers and IBM 12, with all the centers delivering cloud services.

The new Mexican data center will be based in Mexico City. IBM did not, however, give any more details about the proposed center in Mexico.

Armonk, NY-based IBM believes that the global cloud market is set to grow to $200 billion by 2020, driven largely by businesses and government agencies deploying cloud services to transform their business practices.

“The new cloud investments IBM is making will provide business clients the ability to place and control their data globally. IBM SoftLayer gives clients the ability to choose a cloud environment and location that best suits their business needs and provides visibility and transparency to where data reside, control of data security and placement,” said the company in a statement.

The countries where new IBM data centers are likely to open include China, Japan, the United States, Hong Kong, Britain and India.

Since its acquisition in 2013, IBM SoftLayer has served nearly 2,400 new cloud clients. In fact, IBM plans to establish SoftLayer as the foundation of its wide-ranging cloud portfolio. SoftLayer’s unique network architecture allows people use a private network and not be subject to the uncontrolled nature of public networks and the internet.

Last week, it set up IBM Watson Group, a new business unit dedicated to the development and commercialization of cloud-delivered cognitive and Big Data innovations. IBM now wants to deploy Watson on SoftLayer.