Federal State Budgetary Institution of science the St. Petersburg institute of information science and automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences is organized according to the Order of Council of ministers of the USSR of 12/19/1977 and the resolution of Presidium of Academy of Sciences of the USSR of 1/19/78 based on department of ADP equipment of Physics and technology institute of A.F. Ioffe of Academy of Sciences of the USSR as the Leningrad research computer center of Academy of Sciences of the USSR (LNIVTs).
In North-West Region of Russia the institute is the only scientific institution of Department of nanotechnologies and information technologies of RAS. The main directions of scientific research of institute are today: fundamental bases of informatization of society and information security; information systems and networks; theoretical bases of creation of hardware-software complexes of information processing in real time; theoretical bases of creation of information technologies for intelligent systems of control automation, production and scientific research, including in relation to nanotechnologies; fundamental bases, models and methods of a research of information processes in complex systems of the different nature.