European utility EDF Energy signed a 10 year £100m outsourcing deal with Atos under which the IT services company will run EDF's UK data centers.

The Atos solution will consolidate EDF Energy’s data centre infrastructure to cut costs by 20% over the life of the contract.

Atos will provide EDF Energy with ‘significant additional data center capacity to meet increased demand, whilst also enabling its services to be flexed up or down according to requirements.'

Existing data center facilities will be rationalised and services introduced from its own global network of data centers.

Ursula Morgenstern, CEO for UK and Ireland at Atos, said: “This contract extends our relationship with EDF Group and represents the start of a long term partnership between Atos and EDF Energy in the UK. It also consolidates our leading position in managed services in Europe following the acquisition of Siemens IT Solutions and Services in 2011 and demonstrates our strength in the UK market in infrastructure outsourcing.”

Nigel Pettifer, EDF Energy Head of Data Centres, said: “Throughout the rigorous 12 month procurement process, Atos clearly demonstrated that it had the expertise, capability and capacity to meet our business needs in the UK. The new solution will enable us to run our business more cost effectively while improving the resilience and flexibility of our IT infrastructure.”

Over 100 employees from EDF Energy are transferring to Atos and will continue to be based at EDF Energy locations.

Atos operates 30 major data centers, 900,000 SAP users and management of more than 90,000 servers globally.

The company reported 2011 proforma revenue of EUR 8.5 billion and 74,000 employees in 42 countries.

EDF supplies gas and electricity to more than 5.5 million business and residential customer accounts and is the biggest supplier of electricity by volume in Great Britain.