The campus, dubbed 'Island East Matrix' by Swire, comprises eight office buildings, including Cityplaza One, Oxford House and Dorset House, and three 'techno centres' - Somerset House, Cornwall House and Warwick House.
It is the business address of more than 300 local and multinational companies occupying almost six million square feet of commercial space.
Swire distinguishes itself from its competitors by having all these buildings linked via a campus telecommunications wiring network.
It has a public non-exclusive telecoms services (PNets) licence, the first granted to a commercial development, to set up the network, which aims to provide unlimited supply of international bandwidth to tenants within the campus.
The developer believes it will be difficult for others to replicate. Swire can do this because its 11 buildings are separated only by private streets.
Operators of fixed-telecoms network services (FTNS) would have been involved if the buildings had been separated by public streets.
Swire telecoms manager Dora Leung said the internal fibre-optic infrastructure established under the PNets licence enabled companies to bypass the FTNS operators within the campus.
This could cut costs for tenants and increase the speed of communications between them, she said.
In today's information technology-led economy, faster communications meant more business opportunities, Ms Leung added.
Analysts said Swire's efforts to upgrade its buildings had apparently paid off because the group had leased out about one million sq ft of new offices in the area over the past year in a competitive market.
A further 250,000 sq ft of spaces were rented in the first two months this year.
Among the bigger deals, international media giant Time Warner leased 12 office floors at Oxford House while Cable & Wireless HKT rented 13 floors in the same building.
Early this month, ABN Amro Bank signed a lease for seven office floors at Lincoln House.
According to Ms Leung, Swire has connected the 11 buildings through an advanced terabit fibre wiring network which forms a 'spider net' to enable the inter-link of thousands of servers. One terabit equals one million megabits.
While an individual building is a co-location hub for running a business, Swire sees the campus' role as 'co-locating the co-location hubs' in the area.
The company said the 'Island East Matrix' boasted the largest private satellite teleport, with more than 30 satellite dishes installed to provide tenants with trans-global satellite communications.
Tenants in the 11 buildings will also have direct links to international gateways through Taikoo Place tenants C&W HKT and Level 3 Communications.
Ms Leung said the campus was designed to raise the value of the properties and allow tenants to enjoy business opportunities through high-speed communications made possible by its internal infrastructure.
Swire was negotiating with more international carriers to move into the campus, she said.
The deregulation of the local telecoms market has laid the foundation for Swire to crystalise the concept of 'Island East Matrix' by wiring its own infrastructure.
Ms Leung said the company's commercial campus project was also facilitated by the mix of grade-A office buildings and 'techno centres' in the area.
The 'techno centres', with their upgraded telecoms facilities, provided sufficient floor loading and high headroom to accommodate the heavy computer equipment of the international gateways, she said.
Swire is going to expand the campus further, with another one million sq ft of office space planned to be built for Cityplaza One phase two and Cityplaza Two development, which is a redevelopment of Mount Parker House.
Terrance Chow, director of property consultant DTZ Debenham Tie Leung, said Quarry Bay was no longer considered a decentralised business area following Swire's efforts to create a critical mass in its Taikoo Place and Cityplaza developments.
He said the trend of developers upgrading their properties with fibre optics to suit tenants' requirements was to continue.
Developers and landlords had to raise the properties' value by all means amid strong competition, Mr Chow said.
Analysts said older buildings, which generally could not provide sufficient infrastructure for modern office operations, especially needed upgrading or they would lose out to the competition.
Even Hongkong Land, the biggest commercial landlord in Central, found it necessary to improve the facilities in its properties, they said.
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