IBM, the US technology giant, yesterday said it was investing £2m in the construction of a mini data centre at its base in Greenock and that the new venture would be aimed at small and medium-sized businesses.

IBM, the US technology giant, yesterday said it was investing £2m in the construction of a mini data centre at its base in Greenock and that the new venture would be aimed at small and medium-sized businesses.

The move marks the latest phase in the history of IBM's long relationship with Scotland.

The idea behind the new "collocation" data centre, scheduled to be open at the end of the year, is to help smaller companies reduce their IT costs as firms struggle against the economic downturn.

Fiona Kyle, strategy and business development man-ager at IBM in Greenock, said: "IBM already has two big data centres in Portsmouth and Warwick. These are generally for large corporations that want us to manage their entire IT infrastructures.

"The new data centre in Greenock will offer facilities typically only available to large enterprises, such as energy efficient cooling, dedicated electric infrastructure backed up by diesel generators, 24-hour security, alarm monitoring and CCTV, and resilient internet connections.

"It allows smaller com panies to reduce their costs by allowing us to take care of their IT for them. Now they can get a Rolls Royce-class of service for the price of a Mini Cooper-class service."

A number of technology companies have been lobbying for Scotland to become a world-class hub for data centres.

Gordon Thomson, of tech giant Cisco, has said Scotland could attract more than £3bn of inward investment over the next few years by becoming a prime location for global firms seeking to establish data centres.

Data centres run hot and they require cooler locations, such as Scotland, to operate efficiently and cost-effectively.

IBM first established a factory in Greenock in 1951 to make typewriters. It later developed a plant on the same site to make computers for sale throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The company has since moved away from manufacturing. IBM at one time employed around 6000 workers in Greenock, but that number has dwindled considerably with the company's recent transformation from a computer maker into a global technology conglomerate focused on services.