At a flagship industrial forum, Nornickel forged four strategic partnerships to develop an independent IT infrastructure and connectivity. In the face of unavailable Western technologies, the company is placing a strong emphasis on Russian solutions.

A critical challenge for the company remains securing reliable communication for remote industrial sites and vessels on the Northern Sea Route, where traditional satellite constellations fall short due to technical limitations. To address this, Nornickel signed an agreement with BUREAU 1440, the developer of a Russian low-earth orbit satellite system. The company's solutions will provide next-generation broadband internet in the Arctic and isolated areas.

Victoria Povelitsina, Director of IT Infrastructure and Communications at Nornickel: «We are cementing our intent to move swiftly towards working with Russian suppliers. This benefits not only us but also our software developers, as they gain potential customers committed to deploying innovation. Nornickel is particularly interested in the emergence of domestic next-generation satellite solutions capable of delivering stable high-speed connectivity even in the most hard-to-reach regions. Together with BUREAU 1440, we plan to test and develop such technologies for use in production processes, facility monitoring, and improving management efficiency.»

Dmitry Agafonov, Deputy CEO for Business and Product Development at BUREAU 1440 (left), and Victoria Povelitsina, Director of IT Infrastructure and Communications at Nornickel, sign the agreement between the two companies.

To secure the data transmission transport environment at industrial sites, an agreement was signed with MTS. The partnership is aimed at developing joint solutions based on wireless broadband access—private and public LTE and 5G networks.

Concurrently, Nornickel is scaling the sourcing of core software, including agreement to deploy Russian software for arranging remote access for employees. The pilot project was completed successfully, and full-scale system rollout will take place later this year.

The fourth agreement was struck with data protection systems developer Cyberprotect. The partnership focuses on technological independence, joint testing of new solutions, and building IT competencies, which is especially vital amid the industry's talent shortage.

The CIPR forum is being held in Nizhny Novgorod for the eleventh time in 2026, earning the status of a major decision-making hub for digitizing the IT landscape. A day earlier at the forum, Nornickel also signed two information security agreements with Yandex Cloud and Crosstech.

Reliable connectivity: Nornickel signs four infrastructure partnerships