IBM has launched a public data centre in Chennai to tap into growing demand from financial services and government sectors.

The centre will help IBM in exploring opportunities arising from government initiatives like 'Digital India' and 'Smart Cities'. It will also enable the company to tap into data sensitive sectors like banking, financial services and telecom that often mandate that data be hosted in local data centres.

The data centre is a part of company's $1.2 billion global investment. It is IBM's second such data centre in India. The first one is in Mumbai and offers private cloud computing services. Its cloud clients include Tata Sky, Bharat Light and Power, Janalakshmi Financial Services and Mankind Pharma.

Overall, this is IBM's 42nd data centre in its expansive network. At present, IBM has cloud centres in cities such as London, Beijing, Melbourne, Toronto and Dallas.