EMC to Open R&D Center in Russia

EMC Corporation announced it plans to establish an R&D center in the Skolkovo Foundation‘s Innovation Hub in Russia that will focus on development of cloud infrastructure solutions and big data analytics technologies for bioinformatics and energy efficiency.  

EMC also plans to collaborate on research projects in these and other areas with Russian universities, government agencies, and local and multinational companies in the Skolkovo community. The facility will be located at the Skolkovo Innovation Center and will work in close cooperation with EMC’s existing R&D center in St. Petersburg.

The agreement was signed today in Moscow by Joel Schwartz, EMC’s Senior Vice President, and Viktor Vekselberg, Skolkovo Foundation President.

The Skolkovo Foundation is a non-profit organization focused on establishing an innovation hub to stimulate innovative entrepreneurship that will benefit Russia and the global economy. Skolkovo’s goal is to leverage Russia’s resources in the field of contemporary applied research and create a favorable environment for undertaking scientific developments in five priority areas of technological development: power engineering and energy efficiency, space, bioinformatics, nuclear and computer technologies.

In Skolkovo, EMC plans to initially focus
on developing cloud infrastructure
and big data analytics solutions for:

• Bioinformatics – Cloud and big data analytics technologies that will enable the study of larger quantities of biological data, at a higher precision and in shorter periods of time, to accelerate advancements in personalized medicine. These technologies are expected to be applied to molecular medicine, pharmaceuticals, biomedicine, and industrial biotechnologies.
• Energy Efficiency – big data analytics tools that will provide actionable intelligence from the massive amount of new smart metering and smart grid data to benefit energy-generating infrastructures in Russia and the rest of the world.
• Skolkovo Cloud Infrastructure: EMC also expects to be a technology provider for the Skolkovo community’s cloud infrastructure supporting organizations generating massive amounts of data.

EMC’s Skolkovo center will be part of its network of R&D centers operating in Brazil, China, India, Ireland, Israel, Singapore, and the United States. Each center is focused on research and development of EMC offerings such as cloud, big data, security, virtualization, information management, and information governance.

Joe Tucci, Chairman & CEO, EMC Corporation, said: "EMC’s global R&D centers are cultivating talent and facilitating collaboration with the best professionals in the world. The new center at Skolkovo will be EMC’s first to focus on cloud and big data technologies for Bioinformatics and Energy Efficiency and our efforts there could completely transform the way data in these areas is analyzed and stored. We are proud to be a member of the Skolkovo community and look forward to a bright future in Russia."

Viktor Vekselberg, President, Skolkovo Foundation, said: "As a global leader in enabling its customers to store, manage, protect and analyze data, EMC is uniquely qualified to help the Skolkovo community achieve maximum effectiveness by working with their most valuable asset: information."

EMC in Russia
EMC established its presence in Russia in 1993 and opened its St. Petersburg R&D center in June of 2007. EMC Russia employs hundreds of professionals and has offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, and Novosibirsk. The company also actively works with leading Russian universities, 45 of which, are EMC Academic Alliance partners, including Lomonosov Moscow State University, National Research Nuclear University (MEPHI), Bauman Moscow State Technical University, St. Petersburg State University and many others. Since 2000, EMC Russia has completed thousands of projects for local companies from industries including financial services and manufacturing, as well as for scientific institutions, telecom and scientific and public sector. EMC technologies are currently used by Russia’s ten leading telecom providers, fifteen of the twenty largest banks, eight of the ten largest insurance companies and the ten largest steel companies. In 2009 EMC was recognized by the Federal Assembly of Russia as the Best Employer in Russia.