Over the past decade there has been a move within the IT sector towards virtualisation.
An examination of the opportunities to win data centre business in Wales, and the economic and social consequences of doing so.
The Welsh language is a stand-out in its ability to survive - there are more Welsh speakers than there are speakers of the all other Celtic languages put together. As part of a continued effort to support the Welsh language, support for it in IT must be an important factor.
While there is a strong case for upgrading road and rail links between North and South Wales, the cost of such upgrades would be very high. However this is not true of communications and IT infrastructure.
For Wales to have a successful data centre industry, we must ask why Wales is a suitable place for companies, charities, government agencies to store and process their data here.
The Irish economy is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, attracting high tech companies to set up home there.
The Scottish government recognises the importance of data centres as part of its IT strategy.