RESTON, Va. — Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, alongside Google officials, announced Tuesday big new plans for the company to invest millions in the state, which for over a decade has remained its home base.
The company shared plans to invest more than $300 million in the Commonwealth in 2022. Google's office footprint in northern Virginia currently includes four floors totaling about 115,000 square feet in the Reston Station office building. More than 480 Virginians are employed full-time by the company.
In addition, they hope that the next generation of Virginia's students might be inspired to kickstart careers in computer science someday through the help of CodeVA, a nonprofit that works to expand educational opportunities in the field to all of Virginia's students.
The company is awarding a total of $250,000 grant to the nonprofit. The grant will help expand the state’s regional Computer Science Hub Network, where in-person professional development and curriculum development are available for educators, students and families.
The company also announced an expanded partnership with Virginia community colleges, ensuring that all 23 community colleges and five higher learning centers across the state have access to Google career certificates, which are meant to provide more entry-level opportunities for careers in tech fields.
The new Virginia developments are just a piece of the company’s efforts, including plans to invest approximately $9.5 billion in offices and data centers and create at least 12,000 new full-time Google jobs across the U.S. this year.
"Google's offices and data centers provide vital anchors to our local communities and help us contribute to their economies,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. “As we embrace more flexibility in how we work, we believe it's more important than ever to invest in our campuses and that doing so will make for better products, a greater quality of life for our employees, and stronger communities."