Google could double Colorado workforce, expand Boulder presence

BOULDER — As part of an announcement of a $10 billion nationwide investment in new office spaces and data centers, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post Wednesday the company has “the capacity to double our [Colorado] workforce over the next few years, in part by expanding our presence in Boulder.”

A Google spokeswoman declined to provide any additional information about local growth plans.

Google’s presence in Boulder, which includes more than 1,300 employees, has been steadily growing in recent months following the 2019 take over of the former CA Technologies Inc. building, a nearly 160,000-square-foot facility at 3333 Walnut St. 

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The third building at Google’s 300,000-square-foot main campus at 2930 Pearl St. is expected to be occupied beginning this spring. That campus was designed to house 1,500 employees.

In addition to the main campus and the Walnut Street space, the company has Boulder offices at 2590 Pearl St., 2600 Pearl St. and 2525 28th St. Among Google’s other Boulder operations is subsidiary and health-care technology firm Verily Life Sciences.

The Walnut Street space houses gTech, or Google Technical Services, which provides technical expertise to partners using Google products. Google’s Boulder operations more generally focus on product development and engineering for business units including Chrome, Google Maps, GSuite, payments, people operations and advertising. The 28th Street offices are home to Google Nest, which makes smart-home devices such as thermostats, cameras and smoke alarms.

Google’s first local foothold came with its acquisition of SketchUp in 2006, a company that was eventually divested in 2012.

Pichai wrote that in addition to Colorado, Google’s focus in 2020 will be on office and data center expansions in Georgia, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and California. 

“In addition to these investments in infrastructure and jobs, we’ll also continue our work nationally with local startups, entrepreneurs and small business owners to help Americans access new digital opportunities,” he wrote.