In early 2011, leading technology and consulting giant IBM has started its quest on cloud computing adoption and forming global alliance. Along with its centennial celebration, IBM is also going green with the new data centers they are about to build. The company’s cloud services are now readily and rapidly expanding and have reached Europe, by way of United Kingdom. Today, Cable&Wireless and IBM announced their partnership that will create an intelligent data and communication solutions that will effectively monitor the power consumption of more or less 50 million smart electrical meters in the country—they named it UK Smart Energy Cloud.

Laurence Carpanini, Director of Smart Meters and Smart Grids, IBM UK & Ireland explains the importance of the collaboration in the country’s mission to lessen carbon utilization. He said, “As we start the journey towards a low carbon economy smart meters will drive a wave of change in the energy system and are set to become an increasingly important part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. With this collaboration, we can provide the UK with a flexible, intelligent solution based on proven technology. We can support the national Smart Meter Implementation Programme and help communities become smarter, more connected and in turn, more sustainable.”

On the other hand Matt Key, the Managing Director of Enterprise of C&W Worldwide expressed his confidence on the program launched saying, “We believe a collaboration of this kind is the most natural approach to achieving an end to end solution for a complete smart metering roll-out and making smart grid a reality. The challenge is for smart meters to reach the entire UK population and this will require a combination of enabling solutions, such as GPRS, radio and Power Line Carrier to make sure it’s cost effective. However, it is the network connecting it all and intelligent data management, that is central to the smart agenda’s success.”

Earlier this year, IBM released its project, City Forward—which aims to improve quality of lives of people thriving within the urban space through big data analysis. The organization has also extended its arms in Asia Pacific and allocated $38 million in cloud computing data center and teamed up with SAP to bring town another Titan, Oracle.

With homes moving towards the green revolution and looking at efficiency at all levels, this collaboration is set to promote economic advantages for the United Kingdom.

Smart grids have made it to headlines the past few weeks. In Canada, it is referred to as the fastest growing sustainable business with an outstanding prediction on $3.7 billion market spending in 2014. Clean-tech spending reached record-breaking mark with $243 billion in 2010. With this current positive trend of smart grid investments, “app store” for utilities may just be underway. With homes moving towards the green revolution and looking at efficiency at all levels, this collaboration is set to promote economic advantages for the United Kingdom.