Russia Builds Regional IT Hubs to Decentralize Tech Industry
From Orenburg to St. Petersburg, Russia is rapidly creating IT hubs that attract talent and investment outside Moscow, signaling a nationwide shift toward decentralized tech growth.
Russian regions are actively developing IT ecosystems to compete with the country’s capitals as centers of talent and investment. Authorities, businesses, and universities are joining forces to create modern educational infrastructure and comfortable conditions for tech specialists.
At the IT Fest Oren 2025 in Orenburg, stakeholders discussed building a regional IT hub with the involvement of federal companies. Dmitry Vecherenko, the region’s Minister of Digital Development, emphasized that such projects require close cooperation between universities, businesses, and government.
Tatiana Fomina, HeadHunter’s Director of IT and Cybersecurity, noted that today the hiring market for programmers spans all of Russia. Advances in digital technology allow developers to work for major federal companies without leaving their home region. Representatives from School 21 and Yandex Practicum spoke about new educational models, while companies such as BukhgalterFon Service, Evolenta, and RT Labs shared their experiences of opening regional offices.
The trend of IT decentralization is gaining momentum nationwide. T-Technology Group, the parent company of T-Bank, opened the largest IT hub in Northwestern Russia this year, a 30,000-square-meter office in St. Petersburg designed for 2,500 employees including developers, analysts, and machine learning specialists.
Meanwhile, the Nizhny Novgorod region unveiled an ambitious project in 2024: construction of the NEIMARK IT campus, envisioned as a prototype for a national IT university. The creation of regional IT hubs is expected to foster balanced industry development, generate high-tech jobs, and establish new points of economic growth across the country.
