This year, Google is launching a $75 million Google.org AI Opportunity Fund in addition to investing $1 billion in developing its data centre facilities in Virginia.
Google President and CEO Ruth Porat disclosed the plans during a media briefing on Friday.
Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin accompanied the President at the initiative’s announcement at Google’s Reston headquarters.
This takes Google’s total investment in the state to over $4.2 billion.
Google is investing $1 billion to expand its data centres, which are located in Prince William County and Loudoun County, respectively.
A Google fact sheet states that the Prince William County data centre was constructed in 2023. A Google representative did not disclose the size of the sites and future development plans.
“The investments we’ve made today are not only important investments in infrastructure, but they’ve also added 3,500 jobs in Virginia, and they’ve supported $1 billion of economic activity, and we look forward to continuing to build on the work that we’ve done today,” said Porat.
Regarding the investment plans, Youngkin said: “Today is a great day. We’ve got a $1 billion investment in the commonwealth that we’re announcing. There’s an establishment of a new AI Opportunity Fund.
“And we’re creating new and opportunistic ways and pathways for people to upskill and find a new pathway to an amazing career,” “That is worth celebrating.”
Newsng understands that Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, will help over a million Americans acquire critical AI skills by giving grants to top workforce development and education organisations through its new $75 million AI Opportunity Fund.
According to Google, the company’s investments in its data centres in Virginia are crucial to the success of its cloud and AI technology businesses.
Popular digital services like Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Search, and Maps are powered in part by Google’s data centres. We earlier reported that Google’s charitable arm has introduced a new initiative tagged Google.org Accelerator: Generative AI to support organisations creating technology that makes use of generative AI.
