Speaking on Intel's global investments in this space so far, Robert Kidd, regional manager, Intel Online Services said "The total investment in these five centres is $1 billion. We have spent about a quarter of a billion dollars so far on the five centres that we have set up". Though Kidd was unwilling to disclose the extent of investment in the India Data Centre, a back of the envelop calculation puts the estimate at about 50 million dollars. Kid also disclosed that the company had set aside in excess of a billion dollar for its global foray into the solutions and services business.

Details of the Data Center's location, facilities and partners will be announced by Intel within the next three months according to Michael Aymar, vice-president, Intel Online Services. The centre will initially offer first generation hosting and will expand the facility to offer second generation hosting eventually. "India and Korea are the two fastest growing Internet economies in the Asia pacific Region" says Kidd explaining the choice of India as the next location for Intels' Data Centre. Once this centre is up and running, most Indian Internet companies which currently utilise Data Centres in the US are likely to shift to Intel's facility in India given that the response time will be considerably faster and will burn much less bandwidth.

"Yes that is the idea" says Kidd, "we will actively work towards acquiring Indian clients who currently use companies based in the US to meet their server hosting needs" he added. Kidd however ruled out the possibility of the Indian centre turning into a regional hub since the "Intra-Asia connectivity leaves much to be desired." Intel corporation whose traditional businesses in the e-commerce arena included client platforms, Network Infrastructure and Server Platforms, has recently entered the Solutions and Services business as well.