BANGALORE: Dayanidhi Maran, Union minister for communication and information technology, today inaugurated Microsoft Research's India (MSR) facility called “Scientia.”

The Indian center is Microsoft's third basic research facility in the world. It would cover five research areas like multilingual systems, sensor networks, digital geographics, machine translation, technology for emerging markets and software engineering.

“We are also doing collaborative projects with various institutions such as Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-Bombay) and International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore (IIITB), in areas like landslide detection and impact of computing technology on agriculture. We are also in talks with Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) for a partnership in multi-lingual systems and machine translation,” said Dr P Anandan, MD, Microsoft Research India.

Responding to a question on whether India lacks in innovation, Anandan said, “ The change from translating an idea into a product has not happened. But we are creating opportunities to make this happen. It is not a cultural issue but merely a question of creating the right environment.”

Lauding Microsoft's sustained interest in India, Maran said, “ Microsoft has an unlimited budget on research that is focused with a mandate to make the research productive. When I met Bill Gates recently, he said that Microsoft is taking India very seriously.”

Microsoft Research India currently has around 20 full-time engineers and interns. Many expatriate Indian scientists are working at the center. The 20,000 sq feet MSR facility can house over 100 people.