Citrix, the big player in virtualization, has launched a new corporate data center in Singapore, consolidating infrastructure from across Asia Pacific, which included locations in Australia and India. It invested US$8.7m in the facility – its second-largest internal-IT one in the world.

The data center houses Citrix' production infrastructure for all internal IT operations in Asia Pacific, including dedicated-desktop capacity for 1,400 virtual desktops, which the company is planning to increase to 2,500 by the end of the current quarter. This is one of the ways Citrix is setting the stage for further expansion of its presence in Singapore and in Asia Pacific at large.

Stuart Driver, senior director of worldwide IT operations at Citrix, said the data center's launch put the company in a prime position to tap into ongoing growth of the enterprise IT market across the region.

“Because of its strategic location in the middle of the company’s growth markets, the new data center in Singapore allows Citrix to provide our employees in Asia Pacific with the business productivity, efficiency and continuity they require to work and play better,” Driver said. “Singapore’s world-class business climate, a stable socio-political environment and a ready pool of educated and skilled talent made our decision an easy one.”

The company started planning the migration project in January 2012, and the data center came online in December.

The Singapore facility is only the beginning of a three-year plan to consolidate and improve Citrix' global IT operations. The company said it was planning to launch more data centers that will mirror the infrastructure in Singapore.

Asia Pacific is an important market for all IT vendors. Gartner predicts IT spending in the region to reach $743bn in 2013, which is an 8% increase from last year.

Of the overall IT-spending figure for the year, spending on data center systems is expected to grow at a higher rate then the total: 9.5%. Gartner's prediction is that organizations in Asia Pacific will spend a total of $28.6bn on data center systems.