The Skolkovo Foundation confirmed last Friday a broad cooperation agreement with Nokia Siemens Networks, a leading global enabler of telecommunication services. Among other items, the deal included provisions for a Smart Lab on the premises of the innovation hub under construction near Moscow.
The Smart Lab will collaborate with Russian telecom operators, handset manufacturers as well as Internet and handset applications developers across a range of advanced broadband wireless technologies, the Foundation announced.
“We are committed to developing future proof technologies in Russia,” said Kristina Trikhonova, head of Nokia Siemens Networks Russia. “In particular, we see immense potential in areas such as cloud computing, machine-to-machine (M2M), and applications for smart devices, and telco and web 2.0 convergence. We are building necessary systems that will support growth in these areas, and the new Smart Lab in Skolkovo will become one of the key components of this ecosystem.”
In particular, the Smart Lab will play a key role in the Russian University Cooperation program developed by Nokia Siemens Networks to support public research and educational infrastructure in Skolkovo.
Nokia Siemens Networks’ Wireless Competence Center, based today at the Lobachevskii Institute in Nizhni Novgorod, will be moved to Skolkovo in 2014.
The R&D center announced by Nokia Siemens Networks in the Sarov technopark last month – which has already begun R&D activities around active antenna systems – will be managed from Skolkovo as soon as the Lab is ready for operation.
Source: The Skolkovo Foundation