Verizon Business announced a plan to invest $16.8bn on expansion and upgrades of its data centers around the world to enhance its cloud computing offerings for enterprises.

Within the next year, the company expects to expand its cloud computing service portfolio called Computing as a Service into data centers in San Jose, California, London and Canberra, Australia. Additionally, CaaS data centers in Miami and Virginia will come online during the first quarter of 2011 to serve US federal government agencies. The company's CaaS offerings are currently supported by two data centers in Amsterdam and US, with a third one expected to come online in Hong Kong sometime in October.

Verizon is also planning to add more than 5,500 server cabinets for enterprise clients in its data centers in Paris, Dublin, London, Frankfurt, Belgium, Canberra, Hong Kong and around the US.

Verizon Business Senior VP of Enterprise Strategy Kerry Bailey said the expansion project was another step toward achieving the company's 'everything-as-a-service strategy of delivering cloud-based services around the world.

"Our continued data center expansion marks yet another milestone in achieving our EaaS vision, which will enable enterprises to do business better by getting what they need, when they need it and where they need it while only paying for those resources consumed," Bailey said in a statement.

The investment is part of a $17.2bn 2010 spending plan for building, operation and integration of its networking and computing platforms.

Verizon's CaaS offerings include server, network and storage capacity on demand.