Google to get 7.2 acres in Hyderabad IT corridor for its campus

The internet giant's campus will have 2 mn sq ft of office space in the city's Gachibowli area

Google, an American technology company specialising in internet related services and products, will have its own campus for software development operations in Hyderabad by early 2019, according to an MoU signed by the company and the Telangana state government.

Google has proposed to build a campus with an office space of two million square feet on a 7.2 acre- plot of land being allocated in Gachibowli on the main IT corridor of Hyderabad city by the state government.

The company and the state government officials have signed the MoU to this effect at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, USA, during the visit of a government delegation headed byTelangana IT minister K Taraka Rama Rao to the Google headquarters.

"Google expects the facility to be complete and fully operational in about 4 years and is supposed to start before the summer of 2019," said a release, which was issued from Mountain View on Tuesday. When fully built it will be one o the largest campuses for Google outside the US, it said.

"About 12 months will be spent on planning and the construction work is supposed to start at around summer of 2016. The construction should take about two and a half years and we could have a facility as soon as early 2019, " Google world wide head for facilities and work places, David Radcliffe, quoted as saying.

Google has a technology development center in Hyderabad running from a leased premises with a total head count of 6,500 employees. The company would increase the head count to 13,000 people when it starts its own campus in the city, according to the minister.

With hiring mostly confined to address the attrition by the IT companies in the city, the news of a Google campus is expected to give some push in the stagnant IT market here, according to industry observers.

Meanwhile, the press release also informed that the minister requested Google officials to partner with the state government on other fronts including digital education, development of Google Streetview among other things.

"Google is in talks with Union Home Minister to get permission for conducting the exercise at a city wide level. The permission is expected shortly. Google has agreed to make Telangana the first state which will get Streetview for Hyderabad city to begin with," it said.