The investment will help boost the Cloud Computing and Big Data services in Colombia, enabling businesses to meet the growing demands of the local and international markets to offer flexible, high quality and personalized services for their customers.
The announcement follows the US$8 million investment IBM made in Colombia when the company opened a datacenter in 2011.
The investment is significant as IBM has many clients in the region. According to IBM, 88 percent of the 100 most important companies identified by 2012 Colombian Superintendency’s Report are IBM clients, with together they account for approximately 40 percent of the country’s industry GDP.
The datacenter investment will especially benefit 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, IBM said.
According to Vision Growth Consulting, Colombia is one of the fastest growing countries outsourcing datacenter services in Latin America, with an estimated 15.3 percent growth of the data center services market in Colombia in 2013, mainly driven by cloud computing, among others.
“Our new datacenter and our professionals aim to contribute to the private and public companies’ development and the country’s progress. This new investment showcases our clients’ trust in our expertise and services, as well as the commitment IBM has made to the country’s growth,” said Francisco Thiermann, general manager IBM Colombia.
IBM has been on expansion spree in Latin America. The company has had multi-million-dollar investments in Latin America since 2009, opening nine IT Services Centers located in Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay, which provide round-the-clock services.
Also read: IBM announces new Big Data and analytics initiative
