JCD Group, the commercial property development company owned by Cork developer John Cleary, is to lead an investment of up to €200m to develop a new data centre campus on the outskirts of Cork City.

The development which JCD says will generate 150 permanent positions and hundreds of construction jobs, will take place on the 32-acre site of the former Mitsui Denman plant in Little Island, Cork.

The developers say their access to a 60mw connection to the national grid will provide sufficient power to support multiple energy-hungry data centres while the recent completion of the Cork end of the Hibernia transatlantic cable will offer rapid data transfer to the US east coast and beyond.

Cork Chamber chief executive Conor Healy has welcomed the plans, "Cork’s infrastructure will be significantly enhanced as a result of this planned development and will position this region in particular to grow the information and communications technology, financial services and digital sectors for years to come.

“Data centre provision in Cork is required to underpin the continued growth of the tech market and to meet demands, which continue to grow exponentially," he said according to The Irish Examiner.