EMC is building an R&D center in Moscow, Russia, that will be used to develop cloud computing solutions and discover ways to deal with ‘big data’ challenges facing the bioinformatics and energy industries.
The center will become part of EMC’s global network of R&D centers, which can already be found in emerging nations such as Brazil, China and India as well as Israel, Ireland, Singapore and the US.
EMC is building the center in the Skolkovo Foundation Innovation Hub, where it can work alongside Russian universities, government agencies and local and multinational companies to develop its solutions.
The not-for-profit Skolkovo Foundation has been formed especially to cater for scientific development in fields EMC is focussing on: Technology development; Power engineering and energy efficiency; Bioinformatics; Nuclear energy and compute and space technology.
EMC Chairman and CEO Joe Tucci said he expects the R&D center will provide cloud computing services to Skolkovo itself as part of its new research center.
“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 analysed and stored,” Tucci said.
In particular, EMC’s work will investigate solutions that will enable the study of larger quantities of biological data, with a focus on finding more accurate ways of looking at data in shorter periods of time.
“These technologies are expected to be applied to molecular medicine, pharmaceuticals, biomedicine and industrial biotechnologies,” EMC said.
In the area of energy efficiency, it will use analytical tools to provide new ways of looking at smart metering and smart grid data for energy generating infrastructures around the world.
Skolkovo is a new technology innovation center and business park near Moscow set up by the Kremlin to attract high end technology investment and encourage research in the area.
Last July, Russian credit institution Sberbank said it was investing US$800m for a data center development in the park.