IBM has opened a cloud computing laboratory in Singapore to help businesses, government and research institutions and institutes of higher learning to design and adopt cloud technologies.

The new lab, housed at Changi Business Park, is IBM’s 11th cloud computing lab and will become part of the network of labs in Hong Kong, Ireland, Vietnam, China, South Africa, Japan, Brazil, India, Korea and the US.

Through briefings, technology deployment and development sessions, the Singapore lab will work with businesses, government and research institutions to design and deploy their own cloud environments, the company said.

In addition, the lab will also help these clients deploy new offerings that increase business responsiveness, lower IT operating and capital costs, enable real-time data streams and information sharing, IBM said.

Teresa Lim, managing director of IBM Singapore, said: Cloud computing is being acknowledged as a new computing model which can drive business transformation in a cost-effective manner. Due to the strong presence of many global enterprises in Singapore and the nation’s ranking as the second most networked country in the world according to the Global Information Technology Report, we see the republic in a strong position to become the global Asia hub for cloud computing.

“With the IBM Cloud Lab in Singapore, we are excited to help organizations leverage cloud computing to drive sustainable business growth and contribute to Singapore’s national agenda of becoming a cloud hub.