Hopes for more jobs and investment as data centre from Japanese giant gets ready to open in Dagenham

A hulking green box is all that can be seen of what the council has estimated is a £1.5billion Dagenham project. The company behind it says it’s set to house systems that make much of our lives work.

Towering over the old Sanofi site near Dagenham East Tube station, Japanese telecoms giant NTT is banking on it containing dozens of servers after May 1 next year.

With that, the company and the council are hoping businesses will flock to the area, wanting to be closer to the digital infrastructure that's been ploughed into the site.

John Eland is global head of strategy and development at the company. He said: "This is an enabler and a catalyst. There are no guarantees with this facility, but if you look at historical demographics, it will make Dagenham more attractive to enterprises coming in.

"It's a little bit like putting a railway into somewhere, it's not an overnight transformation."

The new infrastructure includes high-capacity fibre optic lines running from Dagenham to the Docklands. From there information can travel through undersea cables and over the world wide web. It's important for some businesses to be as close as possible to the centres, with physical proximity meaning data can get between servers and a user more quickly - there's just less distance to travel.

NTT is the fourth largest publicly traded company in Japan - profits last year hit more than £11billion before tax. At capacity, the IT equipment in its Dagenham facility could use more than 60 megawatts. With the average home computer using around 100 watts, the centre has potential for 600,000 times more power.

There are around 200 people helping build the mammoth structure at any one time. There will be around 30 working in it when it's finished, plus anyone customers want to base at the data centre.

"We've tried to use local firms where possible," Mr Eland said. "That's also the case for the future operation of the data centre."

He added NTT is working with educators in the borough to develop courses to give people the skills needed at places like the NTT site.

It's something to develop skills in the borough, but also to help the data sector, which is facing a talent shortage.