Intel intends to close its R&D center in the Sistema-Sarov technopark in order to consolidate its offices in Nizhny Novgorod, Interfax reports.
The decision was reportedly made in light of the considerable maintenance costs for an office with a relatively small staff, as well the need to optimize the company’s office structure and make its business-project management more efficient.
Another reason for closing the center is the difficulty foreigners have in accessing the Sistema-Sarov technopark, which is located in the closed administrative territory of Sarov, the news agency said.
Despite the exit of Intel, Deputy governor of the region Dmitry Svatkovsky has announced that Nokia Siemens Networks will become a resident of the technopark, according to VentureVolga.com, an English-language website covering investment operations in Volga regions.
Earlier this month, Vladimir Zhigalov, a member of the Nizhny Novgorod regional parliament, presented the Sarov technopark at an exhibition in Madrid, Spain, in an effort to promote Russia’s scientific, technological and innovative achievements. One of the conferences at the exhibition was devoted to the “interaction between the Russian and Spanish industrial parks.”
“Our main activities are the telecommunications and engineering sectors and these sectors are also the main activities of Spanish technoparks,” Zhigalov said in a confident note on the further development of relations with Spanish partners, reported VentureVolga.com.
The technopark, which describes itself as “an organized social and industrial infrastructure,” hosts over 30 Russian and foreign companies. It aims to develop civilian use technology based on the scientific infrastructure at the VNIIEF Russian Federal Nuclear Center and experimental physics research institute based in Sarov, in the Nizhny-Novgorod region.
The technopark is run by Sistema, a leading Russian financial and industrial corporation.
