Arkhangelsk Region governor: Digital Arctic IT-Park will open in September 2022

MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. The Digital Arctic IT Park will open in Arkhangelsk in September, 2022, the Arkhangelsk Region’s Governor Alexander Tsybulsky told TASS.

“We have launched a very ambitious project of a very good digital scientific-educational center,” he said. “It will become a part of the education infrastructure at our Northern Arctic Federal University — a super-modern center, of more than 10,000 square meters. We will open it next September.”

Presently, the former headquarters of the 10th Army undergo renovation to offer modern high-tech space with classrooms, workshops and laboratories in robotics, automation of technical systems monitoring and control, mechatronics and web design, a museum and a coworking area.

“The renovation is in full swing inside that very beautiful though abandoned building of the Army headquarters,” the governor added. “The [building] in the neoclassicism and Stalinist styles will be the home for modern technologies.”

The techno park’s tasks would be to train highly qualified specialists for the digital economy, networking with IT industry leaders, IT companies and consortia, digital transformation of the university’s core processes.

“The IT park will offer opportunities also for startups in the region; as well as educational programs and training of our specialists in the digital economy,” he continued. “The key task is to make an ecosystem, the infrastructures for the youth, which could be working in the IT sphere. This center of IT competences, which we are making, will be one of the biggest centers in the Arctic zone in terms of equipment and approaches.”

Presently, the governor said, the region lacks specialists in the digital economy, and the Digital Arctic will boost this educational direction. Additionally, the region has been working on certain incentives to cut the tax burden on IT businesses.

“We have been working on a few regional initiatives, we want to cut the tax burden, using everything we can, for the spheres of IT and tourism,” the governor added.

This article was originally posted on the website of TASS Arctic Today.