SINGAPORE is moving to develop expertise in a popular new technology called cloud-computing, which lets people tap into the Internet's vast resources to run their businesses.

Some 60 technology experts will be trained in the new field, which allows researchers and business, among others, to farm out their computing needs over the Web.

This means a florist, for example, could pay a monthly fee to run a customer database on the Internet instead of forking out money for a computer or server to do the same job.

Officials announced late on Tuesday that local experts will be involved in a new training tie-up to develop cloud-computing. The collaboration includes technology giants Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo and researchers in Germany and the United States.

Six centres - in the US, Germany and Singapore - will be set up to promote cloud-computing, so called because it accesses the Internet, which is often drawn as a cloud in computer network diagrams.

In Singapore, the Infocomm Development Authority expects to work on as many as 45 projects, with 15 of them being global collaborations.