3Com Corporation has won a contract from Deutsche Bank to replace its existing network with the world's largest high-performance computer network. The $50 million (£34.5 million) high-speed data network, based on high-performance Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology, will link 1,600 Deutsche Bank branches worldwide.

3Com, which employs more than 1,000 people in Ireland, will link 35,000 customer service workstations and supply the bandwidth necessary for fast transfers of large data files.

The move is part of a $1 billion project initiated by Deutsche Bank to update its entire IT infrastructure. The new data network will allow the bank, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, to enhance customer services, reduce costs and speed the internal flow of information.