Up to 130 jobs are expected in Glenrothes with the creation of a £100 million data campus.
The go-ahead has been given for the construction of two cloud-hosting facilities at Queensway Industrial Estate, which creators say will be among the most advanced and secure of their kind in the world.
Around 50 jobs will be created in the first phase of the development, which it is hoped will be complete by the end of next year, according to the firm behind it.
Many will be technical and engineering posts with some security and administration jobs.
Mid Fife and Glenrothes MSP Tricia Marwick said: “This is fantastic news for the town. I’m really pleased we are attracting this kind of cutting-edge technology and hopefully the jobs being provided initially will increase in the future.”
More and more people are using the cloud to store information and most of the world’s leading software companies have cloud-based applications, creating growing demand for secure storage facilities.
The facility, given detailed planning consent by Fife Council, will be the largest co-location data centre campus in Scotland, with the first phase alone covering an area of 90,000 square feet.
Queensway Park Data Centres, a joint venture between AOC Group and County Properties Group, said it represented the next generation in data centre technology and would help Scotland compete globally.
Director Alan O’Connor said: “Interest in the Fife facility has been strong and although we are building towards shared or co-location facilities, we are not ruling out the possibility of a single user requirement for either phase.”
Fife Council’s head of economy, planning and employability services, Robin Presswood, said: “This as an important piece of business infrastructure that Fife can offer companies looking for improved business performance through cloud computing and to companies using big data to identify new business trends and opportunities, particularly in financial services and the energy industries.”
According to Queensway Park Data Centre, there are only seven co-location facilities in Scotland, with around 214 throughout the rest of the UK.
As well as state-of-the-art data halls for high-performance computer racks, the development will house office accommodation, a security centre, client space and a facilities management operation.
It will be capable of handling massive data sets for the financial services, oil and gas and renewables industries among others.
It will be built to high energy-efficiency standards, with the aim that its power usage rating will be among the lowest in the world.
Power will be drawn from the adjacent RWE Innogy biomass plant and vast data halls will be cooled using precision air handling systems with excess heat used in adjoining offices.
The development site is within the grounds of papermaker Tullis Russell but access will be via a new road cut through from the Queensway Business Park.