BEIJING—International Business Machines Corp. agreed to cooperate with Chinese network services provider Range Technology Development Co. on the construction of a cloud computing data center in China, which IBM said will be Asia's largest in terms of floor space.
Construction of the center is likely to generate about $200 million worth of contracts for IBM over the next five years, a person familiar with the situation said.
IBM said Tuesday it expects the data center in Langfang, Hebei province, to be completed in 2016 and to have a floor space of more than 620,000 square meters.
IBM and Range Technology signed an agreement on the data center last week in Chicago during Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to the U.S., IBM said.
The data center will offer services such as data backup, disaster recovery and leasing of servers, said Li Tao, senior manager of IBM China's public sector division.
Enterprises such as software developers and government departments are likely to use services provided by the data center, IBM said.
No one at Range Technology was immediately able to comment Tuesday, but a statement dated Jan. 11 on the company's website said it formed a strategic partnership with IBM, and the companies would cooperate in areas including data center construction.
