Page 22 - bne_May 2021_20210601

22 I Companies & Markets bne June 2021
After a new acquisition, Sber wants to become a
central player in the Russian digital music market
East West Digital News in Moscow
Sber, the state-controlled financial and digital giant,
has announced a binding agreement to fully acquire Muzlab, a leader in the Russian B2B audio streaming market. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but industry publication VC.RU heard it was between RUB500mn ($6.5mn) and RUB1bn ($13mn at the current exchange rate), reports East-West Digital News (EWDN).
Muzlab has developed a platform, ‘Market Player,’ that uses artificial intelligence and data from visitors in physical venues to deliver targeted media content. Stores, cafés, commercial or public places create playlists automatically, manually, or with the help of music editors, to entertain their customers. Businesses can also manage audio advertising across all points of sale. Muzlab takes care of all interactions with copyright holders, including regarding royalty payments.
Founded in 2016, Muzlab serves such Russian and international clients as Burger King, Calvin Klein, Decathlon and Tatneft. The company claims to serves over 1,000 small and large companies with activities in some 300 cities, towns and villages in Russia and four other countries. Its reaches some 8mn users daily in over 10,000 locations.
As a result of the deal with Sber, the company will be integrated into the Sber ecosystem, which will “increase its audience dramatically and strengthen the company’s position in the B2B market,” according to Sber.
Going further, Sber aims to “create a new unique player
in the Russian market, a player with B2C and B2B streaming products and complementary integrations between them.” This will be made possible by combining the activity
of Muzlab with that of SberZvuk (SberSound), a B2C
music platform recently acquired by Sber, previously known as Zvooq.
“Services that create high-quality products for B2B and B2C audiences have become popular in China, the USA and Europe, but an ecosystem-tier merger is a unique event the international market has not seen yet,” Sber quoted Muzlab CEO Viktor Khristenko as saying.
This article first appeared in East-West Digital News (EWDN), a bne IntelliNews partner publication.
Bulgaria to get region's most
powerful supercomputer
bne IntelliNews
The Bulgarian unit of France’s IT giant Atos said on May 11 it has fully delivered and assembled the EuroHPC supercomputer at Sofia Tech Park, which it claims will be the most powerful supercomputer in Eastern Europe and will help to leverage Bulgaria’s high-tech ambitions.
Atos was selected to build the petascale supercomputer, based on Atos’ powerful BullSequana XH2000 architecture, by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), the hosting entity, and the Petascale Supercomputer Bulgaria consortium whose leading partner
is Sofia Tech Park.
The supercomputer was jointly financed by Bulgaria and
EuroHPC JU with the investment totalling €11.5mn. “This will be the most powerful supercomputer in Eastern
Europe and will help to leverage Bulgaria’s high-tech
www.bne.eu
ambitions. Atos’ Czech Republic project teams have already started the configuration tests and the supercomputer is expected to start working operationally in July 2021,” the company said in a press release.
The supercomputer will serve the development of scientific, public and industrial applications in many fields, including bioinformatics, pharmacy, molecular dynamics and mechanics, quantum chemistry and biochemistry, artificial intelligence, personalised medicine, bioengineering, meteorology and the fight against climate change.
"As Europe’s leading supercomputing manufacturer, we are proud to be supporting researchers in industry and universities across Europe accelerate scientific discovery and to develop solutions for current challenges such as those in health, energy and agriculture,” Agnès Boudot, senior vice president, head of HPC & quantum at Atos, said in the press release.