Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Google Businesses

Google Plots Big Expansion in India as US Restricts Visas 92

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Alphabet is plotting to dramatically expand its presence in India [non-paywalled source], with the possibility of taking millions of square feet in new office space in Bangalore, India's tech hub. From a report: Google's parent company has leased one office tower and purchased options on two others in Alembic City, a development in the Whitefield tech corridor, totaling 2.4 million square feet, according to people familiar with the deal. The first tower is expected to open to employees in the coming months, while construction on the remaining two is set to conclude next year.

Options in the real estate industry give would-be tenants the exclusive right to rent, or in some cases buy, a property at a predetermined price within a specific time frame. It's also possible Alphabet will not exercise the option to use the additional towers. If it does take all of the space, the complex could accommodate as many as 20,000 additional staff, which could more than double the company's footprint in India, said the people, asking not to be identified because the plans aren't public. Alphabet currently employs around 14,000 in the country, out of a global workforce of roughly 190,000.

[...] US President Donald Trump's visa restrictions have made it harder to bring foreign talent to America, prompting some companies to recruit more staff overseas. India has become an increasingly important place for US companies to hire, particularly in the race to dominate artificial intelligence.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Google Plots Big Expansion in India as US Restricts Visas More

Google Plots Big Expansion in India as US Restricts Visas

Comments Filter:

  • How long until they move their headquarters to India?

    • Re: No shit (Score:3, Informative)

      by SeeKay ( 883500 )
      It's not just the workers that are in India, it's their target market too. Half the worlds population lives in that part of the world..
      • Sorry, less than a quarter. World population is 8.3 billion, whereas India's is 1.5 billion

      • Not quite sure how the proximity of programmers to end-users benefits the corporation.

        I think this is a good thing, expand opportunities in other countries, Indian engineers and professionals can earn a good income and not have to drag their family half-way around the world to further their careers.

        This should worry the state governments where Google currently has large numbers of workers that will be re-sourced back in to India - for example, CA will lose a lot of jobs I suspect...

        • I could see the benefits of having programmers and designers who are familiar with the local culture and languages

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kenh ( 9056 )

            It's not just the workers that are in India, it's their target market too. Half the worlds population lives in that part of the world..

            Not quite sure how the proximity of programmers to end-users benefits the corporation.

            I could see the benefits of having programmers and designers who are familiar with the local culture and languages

            Do H-1B visa holders forget about their homeland cultures and language when they came to US?

            I was mainly wondering about this "proximity benefit" (which is different from a "cultural benefit" you seem to be suggesting) for a company whose product is served up over the internet.

      • Isnt that the same for any product in the world then?
        I mean by that rationale there should be no US company, just Chinese and Indian...

        For what it's worth, AFAIK, there is far more than 14k Google workers in India - there's approx 40% of the full time workforce (the 190k figure is also slightly wrong.. and includes non-full time workforce - yay playing with numbers).

        I know entire team that have been fired at Google and replaced in India over the past few years, and there was no "Trump" at the time.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by OhPlz ( 168413 )

        The size of the population doesn't matter to business if they're dirt poor. Other than being unskilled labor, which isn't something a company like Google needs.

      • Ad revenue (CPM, etc.) in India is much worse than in the US.

    • Let them go.

    • If Americans don't benefit from Google being on US soil, and many don't, they shouldn't care when they leave.

      Tech has lost the financial sunshine. It's been a few years since Google was a dream job.

    • It was a foregone conclusion. Now the US will miss out on the secondary benefits of money back into the community, etc. Google will probably sit on any taxes and wait for a tax holiday before bringing it back state side.

  • Old boss once told me.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @03:12PM (#65967024)

    Old boss once told me, he'd set up a complete call center for a US client in India, for less than he paid any one of his engineers, maybe 10 years before he and I worked together.

    Just move to India already, Google. It's cheaper, and no burdensome regulations. You'll be free to exploit your workers far more than you do here.

    I mean, that's Google's purpose, right? Pay as least as possible for everything, including people and talent?

    • Re:Old boss once told me.. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by unixisc ( 2429386 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @04:38PM (#65967238)

      No burdensome regulations? Try opening a company there. Of course, for giants like Google, it won't be remotely problematic, since both the Indian government and various state governments will fall over each other to land them in their states

      But other than them, there is a whole host of legacy bureaucratic procedures that people have to go through before their companies can operate. There is a reason foreign companies typically prefer countries like Singapore or Vietnam to India

      • No burdensome regulations? Try opening a company there.

        Company staffing the place was already Indian. All he did was stand up the new building, connections, lines, etc.

        Paperwork is dispensed with, if you have the right "government forms." DD Form 100 is universally accepted.

        • Yeah, I mentioned that above - that for Google and other giants, they don't need to worry. Indian state governments are more than happy to do what it takes to get them into their states

          It's a different story for no-name companies trying to enter

      • Why did you specify 'foreign company'? When Alphabet moves to India, Google will no longer be an American company.

        • It's primary listing will remain on S&P, rather than Sensex. That is what determines the nationality of a company, rather than which passports a majority of their employees hold

    • Re:Old boss once told me.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thrasher thetic ( 4566717 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @04:58PM (#65967280)

      At least the lie would be gone. Importing infinite Indians to fill your roles here is of little practical difference to the rest of us than simply moving the company.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )

      I mean, that's Google's purpose, right? Pay as least as possible for everything, including people and talent?

      That's literally what all businesses are doing through all departments every day. The entire goal of businesses is to produce the most value for as little resources as possible.

      I don't know how clueless you have to be to make the statement above, but it shows how pitiful our education system really is.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        It's tough to shake those feudal peasant instincts. Particularly when your employment is designed to imitate it as closely as possible.

      • while what you say is true for highly expansion- and extraction-focused hypercapitalist enterprises, itâ(TM)s hardly universal. Some companies (for profit!) set as their mission community building first, which may be supported by manufacturing and services.

    • I mean, that's Google's purpose, right? Pay as least as possible for everything, including people and talent?

      Of course: Google is a for-profit organization, not a charity. They will do whatever it takes within the law to maximize their profit, and whatever they can get away without the law as long as they do not get caught, or as long as the cost of getting caught is not as high as the profit obtained. They do that all the time: when, say, the EU imposes a tens of millions of euros fine on Google, Google just pays up as part of the cost of inherent to maximizing their profit - such fines are to Google what a few d

    • Re:Old boss once told me.. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Alypius ( 3606369 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2026 @09:40AM (#65968438)
      Night City was not supposed to be a blueprint.

    • I mean, that's Google's purpose, right? Pay as least as possible for everything, including people and talent?

      Uhh, yes, obviously that's a consideration, although I'd use "policy" rather than "purpose". Imagine you were running a business: of course you're trying to minimize your costs and maximize you revenue.

      Naturally, some people are more productive than others so the least expensive worker might not be the best buy. Sometimes buying the cheapest labor is penny wise and pound foolish, just like it's sometimes worth it buying a high quality tool versus the Harbor Freight special.

      (That said, I'm really warming up

  • Employment at will (Score:3)

    by hwstar ( 35834 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @03:23PM (#65967046)

    is generally only a thing in the United States. It's an alien concept in the rest of the world outside the USA. It's a lot harder to fire people for no reason in the rest of the world.

    The whole employment-at-will thing was a big driver of H-1B visas. Bosses don't like the employment laws in the rest of the world they crave the power to fire someone for any reason or no reason whatsoever. So they import bodies to the USA so they are subjected to the shitty employment laws the United States has.

    Of course, there still little enforcement of employment laws in India, so expect sweatshop environments to make up for the lack of employment-at-will.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      You do get the same practice basically only in the 3rd world. The US is a fossile in many regards.

    • The whole employment-at-will thing was a big driver of H-1B visas. Bosses don't like the employment laws in the rest of the world they crave the power to fire someone for any reason or no reason whatsoever. So they import bodies to the USA so they are subjected to the shitty employment laws the United States has.

      That literally makes no sense.

      H-1B visas became popular because you could hire foreign workers for less money than US-born workers, it was to save money. You really think corporations sponsored H-1B workers, relocated them, dealt with all the cultural and linguistic issues just so they could fire them at will? Really? Had the corporations gotten bored of firing Americans at-will, so they imported a bunch of foreign workers just for the thrill of being able to fire them without cause?

      That is non-sensical.

      • Offshoring is even more profitable. Since now the company can hire people not merely for lower salaries than American citizens, but for salaries commensurate w/ Indians, which is even orders of magnitude lower. On top of that, they no longer need to sweat over visas, nor deal w/ cultural or linguistic issues

        All that said, one reason H1Bs were popular was that there was a time (in the 90s) that American citizens were pretty picky about the companies they worked for, which resulted in many companies not b

      • I do think times have changed. I worked for a co that had H1B's. It was indentured servitude. They got paid less for a couple years, got the card, and now were free to move to another co. They'd get a raise to keep them at the co if they were good. Another benefit they received was the lawyer to help get them thru the process. That was a different time though. Hi talent wanted to come to the US. Now I'm not so sure. I'm guessing but I expect many more may prefer their own country now and avoid the goon squa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by OhPlz ( 168413 )

      That's why Europe doesn't have its own Google or Amazon or Microsoft. It's too hostile to business.

    • is generally only a thing in the United States. It's an alien concept in the rest of the world outside the USA.

      At-will versus contract employment is a tradeoff. Being able to fire workers easily lets companies hire more freely too. The reverse side of at-will employment is I am under no obligation to show up tomorrow, should I find something better.

      There's no right or wrong answer there, just preferences. Personally, I'm a huge fan of low-friction environments, even though I got laid off recently and it took a year to find something new.

  • Oh yeah, anyone who's not as stupid as the average MAGA.

  • Anyone with foresight saw this coming (Score:3)

    by CommunityMember ( 6662188 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @03:49PM (#65967132)
    The multinationals, which use H-1B's extensively, and also already have numerous locations around the world, have always been going to be able to add employees where it made the most sense for the company, and that includes financially. This administrations visa restrictions and taxes is going to end up making it clear to those multinationals that it makes sense to move more and more employees outside of the US. It is hard to believe that someone did not make that point to the administration as part of the decision process. So this must be what the administration wants (i.e. for multinational tech to go elsewhere).

    • The president made the argument to Laura Ingraham that he wanted those foreign employees to come to the US and work, since we don't have citizens w/ the required skills. But it hardly makes sense to uproot them from their countries and bring them here, which, even w/o the visa work, is more expensive than just opening up offices there. If needed, they could be brought to the US temporarily for training purposes, but beyond that, they might as well work for these same companies sitting in their home countr

  • consequences at play.

  • Indian employees best deployed in India (Score:5, Interesting)

    by unixisc ( 2429386 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @04:14PM (#65967200)

    Fully endorse this. If they want to hire Indians, for whatever reasons, just have offices in India! Instead of uprooting your employees from their homes in India, where they have families, relatives and others who can support them, just have your offices there. No need to struggle w/ visas, nor pay them US salaries (which they'd have to if they were to afford the living costs in the US). Pay them what is standard there, and set up the operations there accordingly

    I have seen people, particularly the "free trade" crowd, argue that bringing them here brings jobs to Americans, since these new immigrants/guest workers have to buy products here locally. Doesn't quite work, since those here temporarily would tend to convert dollars to rupees, determine that things are too expensive, and avoid shopping all that much. Also, if we want assimilation w/ US culture, it won't happen as much, as for most of them, English is a second language. If people don't like the "press '2' for Espanol", imagine when they have to press different numbers for Hindi, Gujarati, Telegu, et al. We'll get one more country added to the culture wars, and local resentment against foreigners

    Instead, build offices in different Indian cities for employees based in various places, so that they need not relocate. Even in the above story, Bangalore is already too congested, so Google would be better off building different campuses in other cities as well, such as Pune, Noida, Chennai, Kolkata and so on

  • They don't care about Americans or Europeans (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @04:33PM (#65967224)
    Like I said in the article about the fibre internet shortage there are millions of Americans who learned to code and inhertited significant student debt in the process and have the skills that Google needs, yet they just want the cheap labour while rolling in YouTube Premium Subscription money. I'd even say that Google and the Tech industry is racist at this point just this time around it's Indian Supremacy instead of White supremacy.

    • H-1B visas used to require salaries of $60K or more - Trump is bumping that up, but I forget the new number - will unemployed Comp Sci/Programmers work for that pay level? What are all those workers holding out for, $100K/yr jobs?

      US universities cranked out tens of thousands of mediocre programmers who are going to be squeezed out of industry by AI tools, not imported programmers.

      • I'm sure that all those Comp Sci/Programmers would love to work for $100K/yr. But the big question: how many companies can afford it? Even the Googles and Microsofts of the world know to hire multiple programmers for a fraction of that salary, so as to build in "fault-tolerance", if you will

        Yeah, w/ AI now capable of writing good code, I doubt that programming is any more lucrative for Indians than it is for Americans

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      ... there are millions of Americans who learned to code and inhertited significant student debt in the process...

      Inherited? Bullshit. They went out, took out loans, and went off to college thinking they could easily make enough money to payback whatever they borrowed, only to find out that (in no particular order):
      1) The job market shifted while they were in college
      2) Colleges never, ever, EVER spent any time contemplating how to make college education more affordable
      3) Student Loans are non-extinguishable because their parent's and their grandparent's generations walked away from student loans by filing bankruptcy
      4)

      • There needs to be a shift in policy, where colleges are forced to find job placements for students once they graduate, and keep helping them until they land a job. They shouldn't just be allowed to teach whatever horsemanure they like, and then wash their hands off it once those students graduate

        Other alternative - just abolish formal education, and replace everything w/ certifications - from auto mechanics, electricians, plumbers to cybersecurity engineers. Don't insist on well rounded education when t

  • That this shit has been in the works for at least 10 years. It's got nothing to do with trump. I hate the guy as much as anyone else maybe more however this isn't even accelerating the move to India. Every large tech company on the planet has been working on this move because of course they have. Nobody's going to bring somebody here from India with all the costs involved if they can keep them there. You can't compete with india. You cannot compete with someone who literally makes 1/20th what you do and sti

    • That this shit has been in the works for at least 10 years. It's got nothing to do with trump. I hate the guy as much as anyone else maybe more however this isn't even accelerating the move to India. Every large tech company on the planet has been working on this move because of course they have. Nobody's going to bring somebody here from India with all the costs involved if they can keep them there. You can't compete with india. You cannot compete with someone who literally makes 1/20th what you do and still somehow has a middle class life.

      Google has 4 large offices in India already. I'm sure those were also Trumps fault too. Companies always had the choice of H1-B slave versus cheaper overseas slave.

      • Overseas labor is not slave labor. Yeah, if one translates Indian salaries into dollars, then it'll look like they are earning a pittance. But if one looks at their cost of living - from housing to food and other daily items, that too is a fraction of what it costs in the US. People who work there are not slaves at least in terms of what they're being paid. In India, there are also far more holidays than there are in the US

    • Aside from the costs, there is also the small fact that India is, along w/ China, one of the world's 2 largest markets. Most of the population now has internet access, courtesy smartphones, and there are a whole host of online services there, and e-commerce has picked up. So even aside from the cost of doing business, companies have a big incentive for getting into that Indian market, particularly if they can't fluently play in the China one

      • is also the small fact that India is, along w/ China, one of the world's 2 largest markets.

        Most populous markets.
        The US is the largest market. By a lot. More than China and India combined, in fact.

        Markets aren't usually defined by the number of people in them, rather than the size of the pie that can be sliced (TAM, SAM, SOM)

        • Except that demand more quickly gets saturated in countries w/ fewer people, thereby capping growth opportunities
          • That's a good thing- saturation is when you have succeeded. It means you have sold to every possible person to sell to.
            Do you think companies charge the same price for a service in India vs. the US?

            Put another way, the earning potential for the Indian market is less than the earning potential for the US market, in spite of the Indian market having vastly more people in it.
            This is why the US is as privileged as it is, market wise, and has the economic power to push people around. We are the world's most

  • This is all about cost of labor. Not filling gaps in talent pools domestically. Unless the company is hiring in a different country to support products they are selling to that locality, the us government should tax the us company the avg wage difference for every hire made in a foreign country. Then we can see what is about filling gaps in talent vs exploiting global flexibility of a company vs individual laborers.

  • Makes sense. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2026 @01:04AM (#65967996)

    The big companies are almost all war gaming a long term headquarter shift to becoming truly global, and specifically no longer primarily American. The ties that bind are weakening. When the benefits of worldwide inclusion outweigh the costs of extrication from the US, it'll happen. The American punishment for this betrayal might be market denial. The problem is that this punishment is just a line item in the cost benefit analysis. When the numbers swing far enough, it'll happen.

    At the front line, the value of the person is being realigned. The commodity programmer that used to be worth $80,000 in a now probably worth $50,000 and are not required in the numbers available. The American market value is now undergoing that same reset. How valuable is it really? Less and less.

Slashdot Top Deals

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. -- Sagan

Close