MI­A­MI–Mi­crosoft is open­ing a state-of-the-art train­ing fa­cil­i­ty in Mi­a­mi, its first with­in the Unit­ed States, the com­pa­ny an­nounced yes­ter­day.

The tech gi­ant al­ready has some 100 in­no­va­tion cen­tres in 80 coun­tries world­wide in coun­tries like Ugan­da and Greece. These cen­tres aim to help gov­ern­ments, aca­d­e­m­ic in­sti­tu­tions, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and star­tups bet­ter use tech­nol­o­gy to in­no­vate and de­vel­op more col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing–with the goal of spurring eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. Along the way, of course, the com­pa­ny is cul­ti­vat­ing a new gen­er­a­tion of Mi­crosoft loy­al­ists.

Mi­crosoft vice pres­i­dent San­ket Ak­erkar told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press the com­pa­ny looked at Mi­a­mi as a great hub for tech in the south­ern Unit­ed States."Mi­a­mi is a great des­ti­na­tion in and of it­self," he said. "We've got for­ward think­ing gov­ern­ment lead­ers," he said. The Latin Amer­i­can con­nec­tion al­so sets the city apart.

Mi­crosoft is work­ing with city and coun­ty of­fi­cials to open the cen­tre next month. It will be housed at the new down­town, en­tre­pre­neur­ial in­sti­tute Ven­ture Hive. The Hive, which opened its doors last year thanks in part to city and coun­try grants, al­ready serves as an in­cu­ba­tor and ac­cel­er­a­tor for some 35 com­pa­nies from around the globe.Ven­ture Hive Founder Su­san Am­at says pub­lic, pri­vate and aca­d­e­m­ic part­ner­ships are key to de­vel­op­ing the re­gion's en­tre­pre­neur­ial and tech­nol­o­gy scene.

Bring­ing Mi­crosoft in is part of the broad­er goal of "bring­ing the world to Mi­a­mi," she said.Ak­erkar said he hopes to start of­fer­ing train­ing for teach­ers and pro­fes­sors this sum­mer on the "app econ­o­my" so they can help their stu­dents learn hands-on how to de­sign their own apps.

AP