R&D Centers

US-based NeoPhotonics Corporation, a developer and manufacturer of integrated photonic circuits and opto-electronic modules and systems for the broadband high-speed data transfer based on them, announced the opening of a R&D center and sales office in Moscow to serve the Russian and Eastern European markets.

Microsoft Seed Fund has announced the awarding of grants to two Russian start-ups. A grant of $60,000 was handed to the MD.Voice project, a startup that grew out of a student project in Tomsk. And $50,000 was given to the Kazan-based RealSpeaker project. Both of the recipients have developed cutting-edge software based on speech recognition technology.

Microsoft plans to open a new research and development (R&D) unit at Russia’s Skolkovo innovation centre, according to an announcement made on Tuesday. The company is already one of the largest investors in the center, alongside Nokia, Cisco, SAP, and others.

In 2010, Microsoft signed a letter of intent with Skolkovo that provided for the establishment of its R&D unit and the use of Russian experts to conduct various research.projects.

PeerApp, a maker of Internet caching systems, has opened a new research and development facility in Novosibirsk, Russia.

The Newton-based company said the new R&D center will focus on large-scale deployments of its UltraBrand suite of products, which is used by 270 fixed and mobile network operators. The move will also enable the company to better respond to the Russian and Eastern European markets.

IBM has announced a $6 million expansion plan for Russia and the CIS. By June 30 the firm will add ten new fully operational offices to its existing 12, almost doubling local staff in a bid to “capture regional business growth and increase [its] presence in the fastest growing markets in the world.”

Bauman University, a leading Russian technical university, and IBM have launched “Smarter City,” a scientific and educational center based on the latest approaches to urban infrastructure management…

Cisco recently announced the signing of a strategy document outlining its Research and Development plans with the Skolkovo Foundation. This marks an important milestone in Cisco’s multi-year, $1bn investment in sustainable innovation within the Russian Federation. The plan sets the way for the company to create a physical R&D presence in the Skolkovo Technopolis, and was announced at the Global Technology Symposium, in Menlo Park, California.

The US software giant Microsoft announced last week that a PC game production unit recently set up in Yaroslavl has started providing its products to Russian customers, according to East-West Digital News, an international resource on Russian IT and innovation…