Narayan AmmachchiSearch engine giant Google has started building a mega office campus in New York City with an investment of US$1 billion in an apparent move aimed at overcoming a talent shortage in Silicon Valley.
The Hudson Square campus will double the company’s headcount in New York, from the current 7,000 to 14,000 over the next decade.
The news comes barely two weeks after the Internet services giant launched a learning center in its New York campus to train people in digital skills.
“New York City continues to be a great source of diverse, world-class talent—that’s what brought Google to the city in 2000 and that’s what keeps us here,” wrote Ruth Porat, Google’s CFO, in a blogpost.
“We’ll continue to deepen our commitments in STEM education, workforce development and access to technology.”
Although the company does not mention the talent shortage on the west coast, Google is growing faster elsewhere in the US than in Silicon Valley. Over the past year, it has opened new offices and data centers in locations including Michigan, Colorado, Tennessee, Alabama, and in Los Angeles, California.
The company will also build new data centers in Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, and Texas this year.
Several other Silicon Valley companies are also expanding operations to other corners of the United States as they accelerate their hunt for tech talent.
New York City will also host Amazon’s new secondary headquarters, while Apple has announced plans to build a US$1 billion office campus in Austin, Texas.
Google set up shop in New York in 2000, but its major expansion occurred only recently when it purchased Manhattan Chelsea Market for US$2.4 billion. The Hudson Square campus will be operational by the end of 2020.
The New York staff will work alongside the company’s core workforce, providing services such as search, ads, maps, YouTube, cloud, and technical infrastructure.
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