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Leaders of 11 top high-tech companies — including Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. — signed a partnership agreement Monday with a fairly new Rockville-based center on cybersecurity, pledging to work together to further that growing industry.

The companies will help the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence — an agency formed a year ago by the federal National Institute of Standards and Technology, Montgomery County and the state of Maryland — develop leading-edge technology to combat hackers and other cyber-criminals, officials said.