The company says the new centers - a part of IBM's overall investment in the world's growth markets, to which the company committed an additional $1.6 billion earlier this year - are designed to help clients in Africa and China tackle issues they would otherwise not be able to address.

For example, using IBM's new centers, a university could access the computational power of a supercomputer, in what seems to be a fairly unique application of the technology, to analyze data and determine how diseases might spread in a region or how climate changes will affect natural resources, explains IBM.

The new Africa Innovation Center, located in Johannesburg, is the first of its kind on the continent, says IBM. Aside from cloud computing, the center will showcase Web 2.0 technologies, service-oriented architecture, systems management, next-generation banking systems and environmentally friendly computing designs as it nurtures IT skills and addresses business challenges in the economic growth of Sub-Saharan Africa. IBM says it has set aside $120 million over two years capitalize on this growth.

The new center in Beijing is IBM's second cloud computing center in China and will contribute to the already significant research and development presence the company has established in that area.

The Beijing center will help clients test proofs of concept, as well as design and deploy cloud computing infrastructures and projects, says the company. The center will provide clients with resources such as reference studies and skills training about the cloud computing environment.

"These centers will enable our clients in China and sub-Saharan Africa to better embrace the services-based, global economy," says Nick Donofrio, IBM's executive VP of innovation and technology. "Much like the power-generation and manufacturing infrastructures before it, the data center continues to consolidate for scale and become increasingly more efficient and interconnected with partners and the public Internet infrastructure. From that, a global value chain of information technology is emerging."

The two new centers are part of IBM's expansion of its cloud computing capabilities around the world. IBM launched Europe's first Cloud Computing Center in Dublin, Ireland in March.

Cloud computing is an emerging approach to shared infrastructure in which large pools of systems are linked together to provide IT services. This has been fueled by dramatic growth in connected devices, real-time data streams and the adoption of service oriented architectures and Web 2.0 applications, such as mashups, open collaboration, social networking and mobile commerce.

IBM launched its version of cloud computing "Blue Cloud" in November 2007 and describes it as "a collection of enabling technologies that is used to create cloud computing experiences for customers in data center, hosting service and other cloud environments."

IBM has also been making some noise in the green hosting front with its $1 billion "Project Big Green" initiative. On Friday, the company opened what it considers its greenest data center in North America. http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/062008_IBM_Greenest_Data_Center_in_NA.cfm

And earlier this month, the company said it had partnered with RackForce and gigaCENTER to build Canada's largest "green" data center.