For the past few weeks, most Googlers have been working remotely in light of COVID-19. That policy’s end date has been extended several times now — most recently to June 1 — but Sundar Pichai told employees today that Google is likely to continue remote work for the rest of 2020.
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From the physical component of I/O 2020 being canceled to making premium Hangouts Meet free for all G Suite users, the impact of COVID-19 on one company alone is wide-ranging. Google this evening told Bay Area employees that they can work from home starting Friday over coronavirus concerns.
Google today is detailing its US office and data center investments for 2020. The company will spend over $10 billion across the country in 11 states.
Canada is a hotbed for artificial intelligence and machine learning research, with Google cultivating that talent in a number of ways. Google today announced three new Canadian offices to account for future growth.
Google is famous for keeping its employees very well-fed with a slew of campus restaurants and snacks. In recent years, Google has been trying to get its employees to eat healthier with a number of clever, subtle food hacks.
In recent days, the global tech industry has been responding to the coronavirus. Google today announced that it’s temporarily shutting down offices in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, while instituting travel restrictions.
For the past several years, Google has been planning a very large campus that would reshape downtown San Jose. The company this week submitted a master plan for what it’s calling “Downtown West.”
The goal of a “circular economy” is to minimize waste and maximize the use of finite resources. Google is now setting out to apply this economic system to its operations, products, and supply chains with the “Circular Google” initiative.
For the second year in a row, Google in February detailed a $13 billion investment in new or expanded U.S. offices and data centers. The company this week made “big moves” related to that effort in Michigan, Oklahoma, and Texas.
For 2017, Google was able to purchase enough renewable energy to match its global usage. The company reached that goal again in 2018, thus making it the “first organization of [its] size to achieve 100 percent renewable energy two years running.”
Privacy was a tentpole announcement at I/O 2019 from Incognito Mode for Google Maps and Search to federated learning in Gboard. Sundar Pichai today announced the Google Safety Engineering Center (GSEC) in Munich, Germany to lead privacy initiatives around the world.
Since the start of 2019, the CDC has recorded 555 cases of measles in 20 states across the U.S. A Googler in Mountain View was diagnosed earlier this month, with employees last week warned about the infectious disease.
Following last year’s HTC acquisition, Taiwan is Google’s largest engineering site in Asia. At a Google for Taiwan event this week, the company announced a new campus and another wave of hires for 2019.
At the start of last year, Google detailed plans for new or expanded offices and data centers in 14 states across the country. Sundar Pichai today announced another U.S. expansion to the tune of $13 billion throughout 2019.
According to Austin American Statesman sources this evening, Google has signed to lease all 35 floors of a forthcoming tower that’s already broken ground in downtown Austin, Texas. It will be located, unsurprisingly, right next door to Google’s existing Austin offices.
In addition to stateside developments in recent months, Google continues to expand its campuses overseas. Sundar Pichai today opened new offices in Berlin for up to 300 Googlers working on AI, Cloud, YouTube, and more.
Over the past few months, Google has been expanding its U.S. presence from a planned community-wide campus revamp in Mountain View to Hudson Square in New York City. That pace is not changing in 2019, with Google announcing a 14-year lease for an office renovation project in Los Angeles.
Over the past year, Google AI has opened a number of research facilities around the world. The latest will be a lab at Princeton University to foster collaboration with the academic community.
Google has announced a huge $1 billion investment to set up a brand new Hudson Square campus in New York. In an official post, there was confirmation that this 1.7 million-square-foot campus will be occupied by 2020.
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At the start of the year, Google revealed that in 2018 it would expand both its data center and office presence in the U.S. In recent months, the company purchased Chelsea Market and is reportedly acquiring a 12-story building spanning two blocks also in New York. Back in Mountain View, Google on Friday laid out plans for a massive revamp of North Bayshore.
Over the past year, Google has made a number of large real estate deals to expand its U.S. office presence. The latest last week — involving a $1 billion business park acquisition in Mountain View — is the largest Bay Area purchase of 2018.
Earlier this year, Google purchased Chelsea Market for $2.4 billion to expand its presence in New York City. A new report today pegs another real estate deal in the works that could create office space for 8,500 more Googlers in the Big Apple.
At I/O 2018, Google AI was announced as a company-wide initiative that encompasses Google Research. Following that AI first approach, Google has been opening research centers around the world. The latest in France is now open, amid further expansion into the country.
Australia is one of the few countries that Google typically includes in the first wave of product and service launches. With a new Melbourne location, the company has opened its second office to compliment its headquarters in Sydney.
