The former chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Intel Corp., the world’s largest maker of microprocessors, will co-chair the institution, which will back the so-called Russian Silicon Valley.

“The former chief executive of Intel, Craig Barrett, who is a prominent businessman, agreed to co-chair the advisory board of management of the companies included in the project,” said Dmitry Medvedev, the president of the Russian Federation, at a meeting of the presidential commission for modernization and technological development of Russian economy, reports Itar-Tass news-agency.

In addition to Craig Barrett, Nobel prize winners in physics Zhores Alferov and U.S. biochemist Roger Kornberg will also serve as directors of the Innovation Center in Skolkovo. The president of the management fund of the project will be businessman Viktor Vekselberg, who will coordinate investments by Russian companies. There will be another president, who will deal with foreign investors.

Russia plans to establish a special area near Moscow, where high-tech companies can set-up their campuses to develop advanced technologies or products as well as carry out scientific experiments. The new center should also become a prototype for cities of the future, which should become a major testing ground for the new economic policy. Opponents of the project note that Skolkovo is located in an area where land is very expensive, which means that small companies will not be able to buy or rent offices there.

“The center in Skolkovo is the engine of forming an innovative system in the country. From the very beginning it should be absolutely competitive, the competitive ability should be global, and this is the major difference of the project,” said the President of Russia.

Tags: Intel, Semiconductor, Business, Skolkovo