Google to invest $7bn in offices and data centres across the US

Google has announced plans to create 10,000 jobs as part of an investment drive into new and existing office spaces and data centres around the US.

The tech giant has pledged $7 billion of new investment, with $1 billion of that being spent on its campus in California alone.

Most of the construction has already begun with a number of sites set to become operational in 2021. New offices in Texas and Minnesota will bring its total to 20 nationwide, while a 15th data centre is almost complete in North Carolina. The company has over 80,000 employees in the US currently.

"I believe a lasting economic recovery will come from local communities, and the people and small businesses that give them life," CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post. "Google wants to be a part of that recovery. That's why we plan to invest over $7 billion in offices and data centres across the US and create at least 10,000 new full-time Google jobs in the US this year."

Data centre sites in Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, and Nevada will be fully operational by the end of the year, the firm said, while expansions on facilities in Virginia and South Carolina are set to finish in 2022, along with an 'operations centre' in Southaven, Mississippi. A new 'cloud engineering' site will also be developed in Durham, North Carolina.

The announcements of new and expanding office spaces come at a time when many companies are experimenting with hybrid work strategies. A number of firms have announced plans to change how they use office space with more focus on creating areas for collaboration rather than traditional workspaces. It's unclear what types of 'office' Google has planning to build, but it has announced two new facilities as well as further expansion of sites such as Atlanta, Washington, DC, Chicago, and New York.