IBM Announces $17 Million Investment in Cloud Datacenter 

IBM announced it will invest US $17 million in a new datacenter located in Bogota. The new center will provide Colombian companies with Cloud Computing and Big Data services which will enable organizations to transform their business to meet the growing demands of the local and international markets and to offer flexible, high quality and personalized services for their customers. The new facility expands the US $8 million investment IBM made in Colombia when the company opened a datacenter in 2011.

From the 100 most important Colombian companies defined by the 2012 Colombian Superintendency's Report, 88% of those companies are IBM clients, which together account for approximately 40% of the country's industry GDP.

Through the new datacenter, IBM looks forward to contributing and further strengthening business innovation in the local banking, healthcare, food, insurance and oil & gas industries, among others, allowing them to benefit from a new wave of transformation in services with Cloud, Smarter Systems and Big Data capabilities that help drive economic growth, sustainable development and social progress.

With the help of IBM business expertise and best practices, cloud computing allows clients to efficiently deliver new services to their customers, expand into new markets, incorporate mobile devices, and grow revenue.

According to Colombian consulting firm Vision Growth Consulting, "Colombia is one of the fastest growing countries outsourcing datacenter services in Latin America, with an estimated 15.3% growth of the data center services market in Colombia in 2013, mainly driven by cloud computing, among others, which is already a reality in the country."