IBM announced the opening of its Natural Resources Industry Solutions Lab (NRIS Lab) in Sao Paulo celebrating yet another lab Big Blue has installed in emerging markets. IBM also recently announced a new research lab in Kenya.
IBM said its new Brazilian lab will help mining, oil and gas companies use innovative technology to meet the operational, environmental and supply demands facing the industry today. The new software development lab will be located in Sao Paulo but will have a national scope to service Brazil’s growing natural resources industry.
The new lab will be connected to a global network of labs and industry solution centers enabling teams to share knowledge and expertise with local clients. The operations of NRIS Lab will be integrated with other existing local IBM facilities including IBM Research Brazil, focusing on development; and the Natural Resources Solution Center, focusing on the development of solutions and interaction with clients.
“Making innovative technology rapidly available to help our clients is a key priority for IBM and this initiative is aligned with our strategy to strengthen this capability to help clients,” said Fabio Scopeta, director of the IBM Brazil Software Lab, in a statement. “We’ll combine technical and scientific potential to offer world-class projects as well as leveraging research, development and support from market specialists.”
Operations will build on an environmental focus, including intelligent resource extraction, real-time analytics and big data management for the collection of data, according to Ulisses Mello, a natural resources executive for IBM Research-Brazil.
“The goal is to enable technology-driven operations and leverage predictive analytics, helping companies improve their natural resource extraction capabilities,” Mello said in a statement.
IBM has established Natural Resources Solutions Centers (NRSC) in Rio de Janeiro (opened March 2011) and Perth, Australia (open in June 2010) to help companies in the oil, gas and mining industries speed up the adoption of innovative technology and business strategies.
NRSC works as a showcase of IBM solutions so that clients can experience hands-on demos of leading-edge technologies for the oil and gas and mining industries. The new Sao Paulo lab will focus on software R&D to create a specialized portfolio for this industry, which will be available at the NRSC in the form of demos, IBM said.
Meanwhile, on Aug. 13, IBM announced the opening of its first IBM Research lab on the African continent. IBM Research-Africa’s first location in Nairobi, Kenya, is in collaboration with the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) through the Kenya ICT Board. The lab will conduct basic and applied research focused on solving problems relevant to Africa and contribute to the building of a science and technology base for the continent.
To read the original eWeek article, click here: IBM Labs Open in Brazil, Kenya
