One of the world’s largest technology investment firms announced today that it will sink $48 million in private equity into DarwinSuzsoft, a Chinese company that specializes in IT outsourcing.The deal by Francisco Partners, which has $5 billion in capital, demonstrates the growing momentum in China as a destination for IT and business-process outsourcing. Francisco is known for such deals as its $200 million acquisition of software company FrontRange Solutions and sizable investments in Barracuda Networks and Primavera Systems.

“We think it’s the largest deal ever done for outsourcing and offshoring in China,” said DarwinSuzsoft CEO Dan Ross in an interview. “It’s not typical for a Chinese investment, but I think you’ll start to see more of this because the heat is growing rapidly in terms of the marketplace.”

A provider of spend management services says one of India’s largest outsourcers is holding its data hostage at an offshore location and is refusing to return the information unless legal claims against it are dropped.New York City-based The Buying Triangle also says that Infosys, through a subsidiary, exposed its customer data online and stole its business plans.

TBT hired Infosys BPO last year, when the unit was known as Progeon Ltd., to host, support, and maintain its P2P Smart spend management application. TBT customers access P2P Smart online to help analyze and reduce their purchasing costs.

The deal quickly went sour after TBT found that its customers were frequently unable to access P2P Smart because servers Infosys set up in Bangalore to host the application were frequently down, TBT alleges in a lawsuit it’s filed against Infosys BPO.