New data centers will be constructed in New Zealand to help the government meet its cloud computing directives after the government announced major contracts for IT services this last week.

Revera and Datacom have been announced as preferred Infrastructure-as-a-Service suppliers for the Department of Internal Affairs-led programme, costing an estimated NZ$50 to $250m over the next ten years.

According to reports, IBM, which also has large data centers in the country, is also in talks with the government regarding its lucrative cloud computing contracts. Revera said it operates New Zealand’s largest Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform and just this week it told technology news site The Register said it would be building a NZ$40m data center in Wellington on a 4,000sq m site in Upper Hut, its fifth in New Zealand. And New Zealand-based data center company Datacom also announced plans to build a Tier III data center in Hamilton, New Zealand, following its placement on the government’s preferred supplier list.

Hamilton is the fourth largest authority in New Zealand, sitting 130km south of Auckland on the North Island in an area Datacom says has a low risk of earthquake. The company is working with Beca Carter on the design of the new data center and Fletcher Building will carry out the construction. The companies also worked together on Datacom’s Tier 3 facility in Auckland, which is today known as one of the most energy efficient data centers in New Zealand.

The Department of Internal Affairs has made its intentions to use IT to reduce government costs and improve efficiency clear, and Datacom’s Sydney-based CEO Jonathan Ladd said this is driving growth in the data center space in the country. He said New Zealand’s government commitment to the Cloud is larger than that seen in a number of countries moving into the space so far. “We believe [the commitment to the Cloud] is a world-first on this all-of-government scale for a national administration,” Ladd said. “With Australia and particularly New Zealand recognized as high growth markets for cloud services, Datacom is continuing to invest significantly in infrastructure across the region, including expanding its Sydney cloud platform and establishing nodes in Melbourne and Brisbane to meet demand.”

Datacom said it will have a standalone cloud computing platform ready to meet this growth within 90 days, using technology sourced from Cisco, HP, EMC, IBM, Microsoft, NetApp, VMware and Symantec. Management tools will also be provided as part of Datacom Cloud Services for Government will also offer a “single pane view” of the cloud services environment for customers. Datacom already runs a commercial cloud computing environment in New Zealand from three of its local data centers in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. Datacom New Zealand CEO Greg Davidson said unlike Revera, which has a long history of enterprise-grade cloud provision, Datacom will build on this commercial platform to create enterprise grade service offerings.

“Datacom’s commitment to providing the benefits of technology advances to its clients through its early and proven investment in cloud computing now enables us to offer infrastructure as a service to all NZ Government agencies,” Davidson said. “Our selection is highly significant for Datacom and will allow us to bring the benefits of efficient cloud computing to many public sector organizations. The NZ Government’s embrace of this innovative technology paradigm will further spur its adoption across the country, which can only be good for productivity and the economy.” The new data center, due to open in 2013, will help it meet future demand for cloud services.