General Motors (GM) unveiled its new US$130m data center in Warren, Michigan – a Detroit suburb – that will serve as the computing backbone for the automaker’s global operations.

The company called the data center “the capstone” of its initiative to transform IT operations. The company is consolidating its global data center footprint and switching from a mostly-out-sourced to a mostly-in-sourced model for providing IT services.

This is the first of two data centers that bring in-house GM’s global IT infrastructure and consolidate a network of multiple sites. The company will build the second facility in the Milford Township, where local authorities have recently approved tax exemptions for a data center construction project by GM.

GM chairman and CEO Dan Akerson said having a single “nerve center” for the company's operations will result in a quicker delivery of new car designs and technologies, as well as improve the bottom line. “IT is back home where it should be, and it further drives unnecessary complexity from our businesses while improving our operational efficiency and better supporting our business strategy.”

The company plans to create a private cloud across the two data centers that will provide supercomputing power and corporate-IT infrastructure.

One example of the benefits are crash-test simulations. Enabled by supercomputing, they generate data that is analyzed and applied in vehicle design and development or refinement of safety technologies, saving $350,000 for each physical crash test avoided, GM said.

Another example of the company's new IT infrastructure is the application that enables global product development teams to make tooling payments to suppliers at key points throughout the development cycle, which helps suppliers prioritize the timing of critical parts and reduce overall engineering expenses by millions.

Chevrolet (a GM brand) tracked sales data of last year’s Impala in markets where car buyers traded in non-GM models, enabling a jump-start to sales of the new 2014 Impala in markets where it previously underperformed, the company said.

The Warren and Milford data centers are part of a previously announced plan to transform GM’s global IT footprint from 23 facilities to two by 2015. Construction of the $100m data center expansion in Milford will begin this summer.