The Wall Street Journal reports that after the election, Barack Obama’s advisors held a meeting with IBM to find out what kind of impact federal funding for the IT industry would accomplish.

IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano made it clear that investment in IT would create jobs and even got pretty specific on it saying that $10 billion for broadband network expansion would generate 498,000 jobs in one year. The same amount going into IT in the medical industry would generate 212,000 position and if it went to the creation of a smart grid it would result in 239,000 jobs.

The Wall Street Journal states that Palmisano acknowledged that any of those investments would require legislation and that he asked the Obama advisers what might be done directly without having to worry about Congress.

The result led Palmisano to suggest an executive order that would see all of the government’s data centers to be made “green” within three years.

With all the recent talk about how to make a green data center, this might be a great time to try and execute this plan.