Nevada Tele.com will create more than 70 jobs at an Internet data centre in Dublin in the next five years. The company, a joint venture between British telecommunications company Energis and Northern Ireland power company Viridian, opened the centre yesterday. Nevada Tele.com, which has headquarters in Belfast, designs, integrates and manages voice, data and Internet solutions for businesses.

The 50,000 sq ft centre in Clonshaugh, which cost £5 million sterling (#8 million) to develop, will provide a range of e-business and hosting solutions, an e-payment gateway and supplementary telephony and call centre options.

As well as serving businesses across Ireland, the centre will be linked to a network of similar data centres across Europe through a partnership with Energis, which is developing Internet data centres in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Poland. The Irish centre will also be linked to Nevada Tele.com's hosting facility in New York.

The company said the opening of the centre marked the latest stage in its £100 million investment in its all-Ireland business strategy. Nevada Tele.com already employs around 160 people in Ireland and has established points of presence in Belfast, Dublin, Cork and Shannon.