The CEO of Ericsson Börje Ekholm: "Research center in Innopolis will become a part of the global net of Ericsson’s RnD-centers"

The Center in Tatarstan's Innopolis will become an important part of the global net of Ericsson’s RnD-centers for research and development of technologies based on 5G and Internet of things, the CEO of Ericsson Börje Ekholm stated at the opening of the joint research center with MTS.

On April 25, the official opening ceremony of the Scientific and Research Center took place. Innovative products and solutions based on Ericsson's and MTS's 5G and Internet of things (IoT) technologies will be developed there and distributed to the Russian and global markets .

The agreement on the establishment of such center in Tatarstan was signed on February 28 in Barcelona at the World Mobile Congress between Ericsson and МТS companies and Tatarstan Investment Development Agency.

As the Prime Minister of Tatarstan Alexei Pesoshin noted during the opening ceremony, the republic is intended to continue paying serious attention to the development of new technologies and cooperation with international brands.

"As the fourth industrial revolution calls for us with big challenges, we identified the cluster of "smart economy" as one of the key points in the Development Strategy of the Republic of Tatarstan till 2030. In the first newly constructed in Russia city Innopolis, we are creating the world-class infrastructure. According to the results of 2017, 61 resident company with the total investment of almost 11 billion rubles have registered here.

In 2017, 27 companies became residents, including the companies with participation of foreign investors. In addition, in December 2017, the projects of 8 more companies with the declared investment of 650 million rubles were approved. One of the areas for cooperation will be the development of technologies in Tatarstan's municipalities related to digitalization of the urban infrastructure", - Tatarstan Prime-Minister said.

According to Alexey Pesoshin, the world market of IT-solutions is estimated currently at 3,5 trillion dollars. Last year it grew by 4%. The Russian segment is 1.8 trillion roubles, which is equal to just above 2% of country's GDP.

Investment in fixed capital of large and medium-sized companies in the development of IT-segment in 2017 amounted at 6,5 billion rubles, but this is less than 2% of the total investment.

The President and CEO of of Ericsson Börje Ekholm, who visited Tatarstan in the frames of the opening of the new center, stated that Ericsson company has chosen the republic as the platform for work due to its active development, including the segment of new technologies.

"5G is not just popular words, this is our reality. It is crucial for us to maintain leadership in this area, just as we are working in the other ones. We predict that by the year 2030 the will be a network of about 20 billion devices connected to the Internet of things. That's why such networks as 5G are very important for productive work.

The center in Tatarstan will become an important part of the global net of RnD-centers in development and research technologies based on 5G and Internet of things. We plan to attract new partners, as well as we work with MTS. Now, Ericsson is cooperating with more than 3 thousand providers to ensure the work of IoT to a large amount of consumers.

Tatarstan is one of the strongest and fast growing regions which pays a lot of attention to the development of high technologies. And we are glad to become a part of this ecosystem, developing and implementing new technologies", - Börje Ekholm commented.

The value of cooperation between the government of Tatarstan and Ericsson company in the projects on introduction of new technologies was also noted by the President of MTS company Aleksey Kornya.

"The speed of emergence and development of new technological products in the world is very high. Such dynamics presents completely new requirements to business and speed of adaptation to rapid changes.

Our work in 5G segment, IoT and solutions for smart cities is a response to the challenges of the modern digital society. Nowadays already 53% of the world population are Internet users, in Russia this figure is even higher", - Aleksey Kornya said.

According to him, for MTS Tatarstan is one of the regions where the most advanced solutions of the company are implemented.

"Today Tatarstan is one of the entry points to the Russian market for foreign companies. It offers ready world-class infrastructure. Here are international schools, the unique international university of information technologies, world sports events are held here, we rank first for the investment climate in the country for three consecutive years.

It's not surprising that such reputable large companies as Ericsson and MTS have chosen the Republic of Tatarstan to place our joint research center. Hence this was a tripartite arrangement. Here in Tatarstan, the best conditions for work of the new research center will be created for these companies. We create the epicenter of developments in the sphere of information technologies", - the Head of Tatarstan Investment Development Agency Taliya Minullina commented.

Also, on the opening day of the Center in Innopolis, the agreement on implementation of solutions for unmanned drones in the workplace, development solutions for automation of production decisions and industrial IoT with Kamaz company was signed.

At the first stage, the Center in Innopolis will focus on developing solutions for "Smart city" for the needs of Russian cities.

The work of the Center will involve the staff of the company: developers, engineers, business analysts and specialists in business development. MTS will provide the Center with space, data center facilities, network infrastructure to conduct examinations, skills and resources of the existing Center of Innovations and recently established by IoT-lab, while Ericsson will supply cloud and telecom technologies (Ericsson IoT Accelerator, Massive IoT decisions to develop NB-IoT technologies), global expertise as well as access to the ecosystem of partners, startups and universities including consulting support of Ericsson Garage incubator and Ericsson Business Labs all over the world.