Cisco says it plans to spend more than $US1 billion ($A1.10 billion) over the next two years to build up its cloud computing network.
Cisco plans to use the money to expand its data centres for the new service to be called Cisco Cloud Services.
The move makes the San Jose-based networking company the latest to enter an arena that caters to the growing number of companies that would rather rent computing space than build their own.
One of the biggest players in the market is Amazon.com. IBM Corp said in January that it will invest $US1.2 billion in its cloud computing operations.
Cisco says it will work with a set of partners to build up the network.
The company already provides cloud-related services, including the online conference provider WebEx.
