INTERNET company Knowledge IT has struck a deal with Northern Defence Industries (NDI) to provide the largest infrastructure overhaul in its history.

The contract, worth £100,000, will see Washington-based Knowledge IT work on NDI's new £2.3m Marine Design Centre, the UK's first centre to help engineers from different regions work alongside each other on international projects.

It also comes in the wake of Knowledge IT announcing it was to increase staff levels by more than a fifth to 100 after turnover topped £10m.

NDI represents more than 200 companies in the defence and aerospace sector in the North of England, which generates about £2bn annually and secures more than 20,000 regional jobs.

The organisation commissioned the IT revamp as it pushes on with its ongoing expansion, and as it prepares to open its Marine Design Centre, in Newcastle.

The project will see the completion of a common-user facility, and the installation of a remote monitoring system to maintain NDI's daily communication requirements.

Trevor Harrison, group managing director of NDI, said: "The Marine Design Centre required an extremely high-spec level of equipment to cope with the computer-aided design environment.

"Technology lies at the heart of NDI, with every department relying heavily upon intuitive and stable IT systems."

George Sanger, Knowledge's sales and marketing director, said: "We hope to see the completion of the project by the end of September, at which time NDI will be able to fully reap the benefits of its investment in a state-of-the-art ICT environment."