Google planning a huge hardware R&D hub in Silicon Valley

According to a report in CNBC on Saturday, the campus called ‘Midpoint' will have 20 per cent office space and 80 per cent space focused on manufacturing devices, storage, distribution and other purposes.

San Francisco: Google is reportedly planning to build a campus that will house a huge hardware hub in the Silicon Valley.

According to a report in CNBC on Saturday, the campus called ‘Midpoint’ will have 20 per cent office space and 80 per cent space focused on manufacturing devices, storage, distribution and other purposes.

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Google has bought land in northern San Jose, California, spending more than $389 million for the five-building hardware research and development centre.

“It will sit adjacent to three industrial buildings that will house some operations for its hardware division, including Nest products, according to several planning documents,” the report mentioned.

The company’s hardware chief Rick Osterloh recently said that Google is geared up make a big splash in the hardware space.

The company currently has an impressive hardware line-up, including smart home speakers Nest, flagship Pixel smartphones and the PixelBook laptops.

Last week, Google announced it has developed its own custom-built chip to power the next generation of Pixel 6 smartphones that will arrive in the market later this year.

Called Tensor, the AI-enabled System on a Chip (SoC) has been developed specifically for Pixel phones.

In 2016, Google launched the first Pixel.

Google previously said its midrange Pixel 5A would arrive later this year. Now, a new report suggests that the smartphone is likely to arrive on August 26 for $450.