Aviva, the worlds fifth largest insurance group, has signed a $1billion (£700 million) contract with EDS who will provide data centre services for the next 10 years.

Under the agreement EDS will be transforming and managing two data centres located in Norwich, England. These centres will be used to service Aviva’s operations in the UK, India, France and Ireland and should be operational by July this year.

Igal Mayer, UK general insurance CEO at Aviva commented, “After a thorough evaluation, we chose EDS over other global service providers because of its collaborative approach.” Mr Mayer also added that the data centres will “increase operational efficiency and lower costs.”

300 Aviva employees are set to be transferred to EDS to help deliver the services however this comes at a time when EDS employees are facing possible pay cuts after costs cutting measures were announced by HP.