Cable & Wireless has opened a new $10 million data centre that will add badly needed capacity to Bermuda's information technology infrastructure.

C&W Bermuda chief executive officer Gregory Jordan said Bermuda had "reached a standard of telecommunications that was unthought of just a few years ago" and said the centre was a great advertisement for C&W, the industry and for Bermuda.

Also attending Friday's official opening at C&W's Devonshire site was Telecommunications Minister Terry Lister, who said the facility boosted Bermuda's infrastructure as a leading business centre.

As the world has become progressively more computer-dependent in recent years, with increasing amounts of information stored electronically, the demand for data storage space has increased.

The customers of the new centre, will mainly be predominantly international businesses, which will come to house their network servers and back-up data storage in a secure and environmentally controlled space.

The building, which has been put up on the site of the huge telecommunications dish that was a landmark in Devonshire for decades before being taken down in July last year, will house 104 racks. The project has taken nine months to complete.

C&W systems manager Tony White said the walls of the building were three-and-a-half feet thick. The centre has a 300-ton air conditioning unit to cope with the demands of keeping a warehouse full of heat-generating computer circuitry cool.

The centre will have a huge power demand and has back-up generators that would kick in immediately in the event of an outage. There are high-sensitivity smoke detectors and an automatic fire suppression system.

Mr. Lister said the Government's aim of maintaining Bermuda's status as a top business centre was "a moving target".

"What was cutting edge technology in 1999 had no value in 2003, and what was cutting edge in 2003 is out of date now," Mr. Lister said. "So we have to constantly improve."

He praised C&W for making a $10 million investment in Bermuda's technology infrastructure. "We have some five data centres around the Island already, but the key is to put in the most modern and up-to-date systems to ensure we remain a first-class jurisdiction," Mr. Lister added.