Russian ‘Silicon Valley’ to be built near Moscow

President Medevedv has announced during a speech to young scientists that Russia is to build its equivalent of Silicon Valley in the village of Skolkovo near Moscow.

The location in the Moscow region already has a top-level business school which was founded by leading Russian companies.

In his speech, Medvedev said that the project is intended for turning the city into a hub for the development and commercialization of new technologies.

“This will be an all new city, where five hi-tech centers of excellence will be developed. First of all this will be in energy, IT, telecommunications, biomedicine and nuclear technologies. Of course, we are not limited to these.”

Earlier, the Siberian region of Tomsk announced that it was preparing its own project which would create a second Russian center for research and scientific development.

The project, titled Innovation, Science, Education, is already being examined by a working group. There are already more than 200 innovation companies working in the region with yearly growth in production of more than 30% which is second behind the Oil-gas sector.