Google to bring new engineering hub to Durham, up to 1,000 jobs as part of US expansion
Google is opening a new cloud engineering hub in Durham, the California-based tech giant said Thursday.
The company said the office could eventually support more than 1,000 jobs and grow into one of Google Cloud’s top five engineering hubs in the U.S., along with the Bay Area, New York, Seattle and Kirkland, Washington, according to a news release.
The company’s Google Cloud division will lease space at 200 Morris St. in downtown Durham from Duke University initially and is “evaluating several locations” for a permanent home, the release said.
The jobs will be added over “the coming years,” said Marian Croak, vice president of engineering at Google, in a video that accompanied Google’s announcement. A spokesperson for Google said the company is not seeking any incentives from North Carolina for the expansion.
The investment in Durham is part of a broader national expansion, according to Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet.
The company plans to invest more than $7 billion in its offices and data centers across the U.S. this year, and hopes to create at least 10,000 new jobs, Pichai said in a news release.
“I believe a lasting economic recovery will come from local communities, and the people and small businesses that give them life. Google wants to be a part of that recovery,” Pichai said in a statement.
Google has had a small presence in the Triangle before this announcement. Across the state, the company has 600 existing employees, and has operated an office in Chapel Hill since 2005. A data center in Caldwell County, built in 2007, represents a $1.2 billion investment in the state, Google said.
It’s also had a longstanding relationship with the American Underground startup hub in Durham. For five years, Google has hosted an annual summit for Black-led startups in Durham, providing mentorship to promising startups led by Black founders.
And Lilyn Hester, the company’s head of external affairs, public policy and government relations for Google Southeast, has long been based in Durham.
“I’ve called Durham home for decades and have long shared with my colleagues that there is something very special about this corner of the world that requires a closer look,” Hester said in a statement. “Google’s growth in the Triangle is a true expression of a shared commitment to innovation and community.”
In the video announcement, N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper and Durham Mayor Steve Schewel welcomed Google and praised the decision to grow the company’s presence in the Triangle.
“Silicon Valley helped define the future of the internet,” Cooper said. “Durham, North Carolina will help define the future of cloud computing.”
Google’s Triangle plans
Croak said Google Cloud’s networking and storage engineering teams will be the first to put down roots in Durham, but other engineering functions will follow.
A spokesperson for Google said that Durham will initially be home to 110 employees, with a goal of reaching 150 workers in Durham by the end of the year.
Google expects to hire the first employee in the next two months, and it could reach a headcount of 500 employees by 2023, with most of those employees being new hires from the area, the spokesperson added.
“The Triangle region ... is home to highly skilled software engineers, including those with a focus on infrastructure,” Croak said in the video. “This makes the region an ideal area to recruit and grow our engineering teams.”
Croak said the company is committed to the local economy and plans to increase workforce development and advance STEM education in the area.
Growth of cloud computing
Cloud computing has been a growth area for the Triangle for years.
Raleigh-based Red Hat has hired thousands of employees in the region in recent years, as its business in cloud computing has grown. Its strength in that area eventually led IBM to buy Red Hat for $34 billion in 2019 to compete with companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon.
Globally, companies are now spending tens of billions of dollars every year on cloud computing. Instead of hosting their own hardware, servers and data centers, many companies now prefer to let other companies deliver those services over the internet, as it can lead to large cost savings.
Google Cloud was the third-largest cloud services provider in the world in 2020, holding a 7% market share, according to the IT advising firm Canalys. Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are the two biggest players in the space, however, with 32% and 20% market shares respectively.
Google’s news Wednesday is one of two major announcements about investments and jobs coming to North Carolina. Fujifilm Diosynth, a Japanese contract drug manufacturer, also said it will build a new manufacturing facility in Holly Springs and bring 725 jobs to the area over five years. It will represent a $1.5 billion investment in the state by 2025, officials said.
“I think we will probably see a number of companies on the West Coast and from the Northeast looking at North Carolina, (specifically) in this field of biotechnology,” Cooper said at a news conference. “I can see us challenging the Cambridge-Boston area because of our great universities and the workforce that we have.”
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate. Want more on the Triangle’s tech scene? Sign up for the N&O’s weekly Innovation & Tech newsletter.
This story was originally published March 18, 2021 at 5:42 AM with the headline "Google to bring new engineering hub to Durham, up to 1,000 jobs as part of US expansion."
