Big Blue joins up with five Russian businesses to create a new Electronics Technology Center to be housed at the Skolkovo Innovation City
IBM and five Russian companies, Skolkovo Foundation, Rusnano, Rostelecom, Russian Venture Company and ITFY, have signed a collaboration agreement to foster applied research and commercialisation in the area of microelectronics.
Under the collaboration, the companies will set up a new Electronics Technology Center (ETC) to be housed at the Skolkovo Innovation City.
IBM Russia & CIS general manager Kirill Korniliev said, "The ETC will use cloud technology to create a virtual working environment that brings together Russian innovation leaders where they can acquire, use and share design knowledge and spur a new wave of microelectronic innovation."
The agreement will give ETC the access to IBM's chip design technology while IBM will also provide cloud computing technologies to form the basis of a new virtual design environment to be used to develop new microelectronic devices.
ETC will also provide access to a wide variety of semiconductor production processes offered by many different foundries.
The new centre will initially focus on microelectronics design and in future it may be extended to other fields where cloud computing can support collaborative development projects.
ITFY Board chairman Evgeny Babayan said it is working with IBM to create an R&D ecosystem to kick start a new era in microelectronic devices design.
"Leveraging the latest cloud computing technologies, the Electronics Technology Center will provide customers with access to cutting-edge electronics technologies, design automation tools and specialist knowledge regardless of where they are geographically located," Babayan said.
