HP says just one of its Australian data centres will be affected by a company-wide move to consolidate 85 data centres located around the world back to just six centres sited in the US.

Announced by HP overnight, the move will see infrastructures utilised for HP's own operations rounded up into facilities located in Atlanta in Georgia and Houston and Austin in Texas.

HP's site at Rhodes in Sydney would be affected by the change, a spokesman said.

"This data centre hosts internal HP requirements as well as facilities for some of our Australian clients," he said. "All of our internal requirements will be consolidated into the global data centres."

The Rhodes centre may live on as a client-only facility, or may be consolidated into another Australian data centre. HP had yet to decide on the centre's future, the spokesman said.

HP said the six US centres would be able to be managed remotely. As well as technical considerations such as bandwidth and power availability, factors including the availability and price of space, as well as a low likelihood of natural disasters, had helped determine the location of the centres.

HP said in a statement that the move would save it $US1 billion ($1.3 billion) annually. Clients would continue to use 70 data centres located in 23 countries, the company said.

Source: Australian IT