During the dawn of IBM’s centennial year, they’re yet again reaching into a new horizon by taking cloud-computing into China. Yesterday, IBM and Range Technology Development announced a collaboration to build a colossal cloud-computing data center in Hebei Province, China. They boast that the data center, with an expected completion date in 2016, will be the largest in all Asia.

“The data center offers the world-class infrastructure capabilities and advanced network based services to support the business growth of our clients,” said Madam Zhou Chaonan, Chairman, Range Technology Development Co., Ltd. “This initiative plays a critical role in the economic development of China in light of the pressing demand for managed hosting in the areas of cloud computing and mobile devices.”

Measurements for the data-center put it at a whopping 6.2 million square feet, and in an ecological move the center will be up to spec with IBM international green building standards.

The platform will also be used to support Hebei Langfang City’s development and hosting for smarter transportation, e-government services and administration systems, as well as food and drug safety services and supervision solutions. As it will also be Range Technology’s hub for cloud-computing and -storage services for numerous Chinese businesses.

On the same front as the green building initiatives, IBM has also announced a partnership with the Bank of China in London to help them build a greener, more ecological, future for themselves. Together, IBM expects to help the Bank of China drastically reduce its paper consumption by over 95% and also improve the efficiency of financial transactions.

The logistics of their operation listed in the initiative seem to be fairly staggering. The Bank of China in London needs to manually print over 3,000 interbank missives and memos daily in an extremely costly and inefficient method of communication. IBM intends to join with them and deliver them an electronic (paperless!) system that would substitute for their current system and also increase the chances that the right messages get to the right people and that people can acknowledge receipt.

“The improved access to information has been key in helping us meet compliance regulations and reduce costs. The availability of information across all our departments has led to further benefits such as reducing our paper consumption by 95% and allowed us to make more timely and accurate decisions,” said Stephen Hinds, COO of Bank of China’s London branch and subsidiary.  “IBM and Centric iSolutions have been instrumental in helping us stay ahead to more efficiently manage an increasing number of interbank transactions and monitor business process activity across multiple departments.”

IBM is already well-known in the industry for efficient solutions, such as when Singapore Airlines picked them over Microsoft.

Looks like IBM’s solutions continue to develop in both the Western world and China—even if the London operation is directly related to China in this case. In fact, if you found this interesting, you should know that it’s the centennial anniversary of IBM’s founding. (Fun video.)