Asia’s largest telecommunications provider NTT has offered to acquire Dimension Data, a South African IT services provider and Cisco reseller, for £2.1 billion.

The combination of NTT’s global telecommunications infrastructure with Dimension Data’s IT services know how will “create an incredibly powerful and unprecedented combination of capabilities and skills,” said the South African company’s executive chairman Jeremy Ord. “The combined companies will hold a strong competitive position serving global corporations’ moving to managed infrastructure services and cloud computing.”

The Japanese company’s ICT division, NTT Communications, already offers data centre hosting and other IT-related services, but like many telecommunications providers it sees in cloud computing an opportunity to grow sales to businesses. Earlier this week, the company launched a public cloud computing service in Europe.

Dimension Data’s system integration business is highly distributed, with the majority of revenues last year coming from Europe, followed by Asia, then the Middle East and Africa.

One year ago, the Japanese giant acquired security services provider Intergralis. Earlier this year, IT subsidiary NTT Data was rumoured to be in talks to acquire Indian IT services provider Patni Computer Systems, although a source quoted in India’s Economic Times this week says that deal "may be off the radar for now".