IBM Will Invest $1.2B Into Data Centers In 2014

IBM is now concentrating on its cloud space and willing to spend more than $1.2 billion this year to grow its global cloud footprint.

Senior vice-president of IBM Global Technology Services Erich Clementi said "IBM is continuing to invest in high growth areas. Last year, IBM made a big investment adding the $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.”

This new cloud investments will provide business clients with the ability to place and control their data globally. IBM already spent around $2 billion to acquire SoftLayer Technologies Inc. which was the world’s largest privately held cloud computing infrastructure provider which obviously helped IBM in scoring better to compete with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other cloud providers.

IBM started the cloud computing arena in 2007 and has spent more than $7 billion snapping up 15 smaller companies. After the acquisition, IBM’s data center count sat at 23. By the end of 2014, the company will have doubled that amount.