DELL IS to create 150 jobs over the next two years in Dublin and Limerick with the establishment of its first cloud computing research centre globally.

The cloud facility will be based at Dell’s Dublin offices in Cherrywood.

It has also confirmed the establishment of a “solution centre” in Limerick which will enable large business customers to view Dell technology before purchasing.

This is the first of 22 such centres that Dell plans to build around the world and staff will engage in research and development, technology architecture and engineering functions.

Recruitment has already begun for software engineers at the company’s first cloud computing research and development centre at Cherrywood, in the capital.

Dell is also seeking IT architects, engineers and developers for its solution centre in Limerick, which will work with business customers on their technology needs.

Jeff Clarke, a vice chairman with Dell, said the new jobs would be split roughly 50-50 between Dublin and Limerick.

Mr Clarke said the company had been very impressed at the quality of candidates.

“The reason Ireland is the first of our cloud RD centres is around the talent,” Mr Clarke added.

“We find Ireland has an incredibly well-educated workforce that has the skills in cloud development and design.”

In April, Dell announced a $1 billion investment as it moves from selling products to providing services using a cloud architecture.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny welcomed the expansion by Dell, which is being supported by IDA Ireland.

“It shows that Dell is committed to Ireland as a place to do business. It shows confidence in their operations here,” Mr Kenny said.

Mr Kenny added that it marked the completion of Dell’s transformation of its Irish operations from a manufacturing focus.

Dell closed its Limerick manufacturing facility in January 2009 with the loss of 1,900 jobs. It currently employs 1,200 people at Cherrywood in Dublin with another 1,000 workers in Limerick.

Mr Kenny described the announcement as “another important step towards making Ireland a centre of excellence for cloud computing”.

The Taoiseach noted that last week, Cork Institute of Technology announced a new master’s programme in cloud computing in association with EMC.

Ireland is already home to a number of major data centres with most of the leading IT companies having an operations base here.