Google Inc. is going on a hiring binge this year and will need "tens of thousands" of new employees to staff data centers in more than a dozen U.S. states.
In a recent blog post, CEO Sundar Pichai said Google will invest more than $13 billion in these data centers. Pichai earlier said investing in data centers is necessary to "lay the groundwork" for its bets on cloud computing, advertising, YouTube and machine learning.
"Our expansion across the U.S. has been crucial to finding great new talent, improving the services that people use every day, and investing in our business," Pichai wrote.
Pichai also said Google will see major expansions in 14 states. He pointed out these new investments "will give us the capacity to hire tens of thousands of employees, and enable the creation of more than 10,000 new construction jobs in Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia."
The new investments will mean Google will now have a presence in 24 states, including data centers in 13 communities. Pichai said 2019 is the second year in a row Google will grow faster outside of the Bay Area than in it.
Pichai said Google will open new data centers in Ohio, Nebraska and Nevada. It will expand its data centers in Oklahoma and open a new office in Georgia. This expansion means Google must boost its workforce in America's heartland.
Pichai also noted this continent-wide expansion will allow Google "to invest in the communities where we operate, while we improve the products and services that help billions of people and businesses globally."
He said the new data center investments, in particular, will enhance Google's ability to provide the fastest and most reliable services for its users and customers.
These data centers will be powered by renewables. As part of Google's commitment to its 100 percent renewable energy purchasing initiative, Google said it's making significant renewable energy investments in the U.S. as it expands.
"Our data centers make a significant economic contribution to local communities, as do the associated $5 billion in energy investments that our energy purchasing supports," said Pichai.
Pichai said Google hired more than 10,000 people in the U.S. in 2018 and invested more than $9 billion in its domestic operations. Google had more than 94,000 employees in 2018. In contrast, Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, had 98,771 employees worldwide in 2018.
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