ST. PETERSBURG, May 23. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian state-controlled telecom giant Rostelecom and IBM East Europe/Asia Ltd. (Russia), a unit of US technology and consulting corporation IBM, will establish a Big Data and cloud computing center, Rostelecom said on Friday.

The corresponding agreement was signed at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

“The opening of a competence center in the field of Big Data and analysis is targeted at supporting Rostelecom’s development and will enable the company to efficiently use analytical resources, optimize business processes and improve its competitiveness on the global market,” the company read.

Rostelecom is a universal communications operator. It services 26.4 million subscribers of fixed connection, 13.8 million subscribers of mobile connection, 9.6 million subscribers of the broadband internet access, and 6.9 million subscribers of pay TV. Its own long-haul network amounts to 500,000 kilometers, and over 2.6 million kilometers of local grids.