The Oil and Gas Technology Centre will partly fund the work while also acting as a bridge between small tech firms and the big oil producers.
The industry said research projects have recently been neglected.
It said this happened after many production platforms were sold by the big oil majors to much smaller firms.
Oil supply company Mistras has been developing technology more commonly used to enable expectant mothers to see their babies.
The ultrasound scanners, complete with cold jelly, are being used to detect corrosion in pipes.
The Dyce-based company hopes the technology centre will help them get their product to new customers.
Managing director Tim Walsh said: "What we are hoping and expecting from the technology centre is that it will allow us as an organisation that has solutions to particular problems that we know exist to get a better connection with end users and clients and get more traction.
"We want them to allow us to take them out into the field, give us the opportunity to demonstrate to potential clients that the technology works and that the technology can actually allow them to do what we want them to do."
The Oil and Gas Technology centre will invest in small firms with solid ideas and help pair some of those developers with the offshore operators that need them.
Chief executive Colette Cohen said: "We have much more operators in the north sea now, I think it's about 60 operators whereas back in the 80s it was about five or six, so it is a hugely different world.
"Those smaller operators don't have a technology organisation. They're not big enough and they can't support that, it wouldn't be economic.
"So this is a time when we can provide that service to them."
The new centre will build on the existing work being carried out by Aberdeen's two universities.
At Robert Gordon University they have a drilling-rig simulator where they train students and refresh the skills of those in the industry.
They will now be able to incorporate new technologies into their models to see if they work effectively.
Prof Phil Hassard said: "They'll be able to get the results back from that... they can be tested here and are more cost effective than trying to do it on a real rig."
The centre's conception stems from the principles of Sir Ian Wood's report into maximising economic recovery in the North Sea.
The oil tycoon was one of the invited guests at the official opening.

NHS managers have proposed a temporary downgrade of the hospital's maternity and paediatric services to cope with staffing shortages.
The board of East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust will make a decision on Friday.
One paediatric nurse, who asked not to be named, said staff were devastated for their patients.
She said: "It's going to mean that many more children will have to make journeys across to Hastings at a time when they are particularly vulnerable.
"They're sick. Their families are vulnerable. And I think it's going to have massive implications for children who are sick and for children who are long-term disabled."
The NHS trust said the changes were being brought in for safety reasons because it was unable to recruit suitable specialist doctors which had led to an over-reliance on temporary and agency staff.
Several options are being considered, but the trust has said its preferred plan is to have consultant-led obstetric services, neonatal services including the special care baby unit, in-patient paediatric services and emergency gynaecology services at the Conquest Hospital in Hastings.
Eastbourne hospital would have a stand-alone midwifery-led maternity unit and enhanced paediatric care.
Paediatrician Dr David Scott said: "They [patients] will get a better service if they go to Hastings because they will get staff who will be better trained.
"There will be greater consultant availability so they will see more senior better trained staff. It will also allow us to increase the levels of nursing care available on the ward."
Liz Walke, from the campaign group Save the DGH, which opposes the changes at Eastbourne, said: "We would like an independent body coming in and looking at the whole organisation to see if they can do something better and actually reorganise the services so that both hospitals keep their core services."
A new research and development facility has opened in Aberdeen to help breathe new life into the struggling North Sea oil industry.
[NEXT_CONCEPT]
Staff at Eastbourne District General Hospital have met NHS bosses over proposals to downgrade services amid claims that patient care will suffer.