Microsoft makes more moves into Moscow

US-based Microsoft is furthering its support of the Russian IT industry, with a third technology centre opening in the country – the second one in Moscow. Microsoft’s first centre was established in 2009 in Moscow, with a second one in Novosibirsk in 2011. Novosibirsk, informally known as the capital of Siberia, is the third most populous city in the country, and located in the country’s southeast. Microsoft provided half of $15m, with the firm’s partners raising the rest. 

The new Moscow technology centre is more spacious and supports more advanced equipment and solutions, in particular mobile, cloud and big data technologies. Its main purpose is to allow Microsoft clients and partners to test run their solutions in an up-to-date environment, free of charge.

The company has also announced a $1m grant for Moscow State University over the next three years. This grant will support laboratories at the forefront of big data and computer vision research, as co-operation between IT corporations and universities are becoming a trend in Russia. Indeed, Yandex and Moscow’s Higher School of Economics announced the opening of a computer science faculty, while Mail.ru Group supports a research and education center at Bauman Moscow State Technical University. ABBYY and IBM meanwhile support computer linguistics departments at the Russian State Humanities University and the Moscow Physics and Technology Institute.

Tony Hey, the vice-president of Microsoft Research Connections, said: “Microsoft Research recognizes the advantages of working with the world’s leading universities – Berkeley in the USA, Cambridge in the UK and now MSU in Russia. We are planning to invest $1 million over the next three years to support talented students and scientists in Russia, who we hope will be able to achieve great things with our help.”