Google (GOGL34) announced earlier this month that it will invest US$1.2 billion in Latin America over the next five years. This Tuesday (14), the technology giant gave more details about what exactly will be the destination of these resources in Brazil – a country that is among its three largest markets.
The novelties range from a new center and new engineering vacancies to yet another submarine cable, through scholarships and the arrival in the country of the Duplex virtual assistant and the Google Wallet digital wallet. They were presented during the Google for Brazil event.
“The focus of this investment for Latin America is in the areas that can make a difference over the years. We will have resources for digital infrastructure, for training people, for developing digital skills, for entrepreneurship and to foster more inclusive and sustainable communities”, said president of Google Brazil, Fabio Coelho.
New center and engineering jobs
Google opened its first Brazilian engineering center in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais) in 2005, focusing mainly on its search products. The technology giant announced on Tuesday that it will have a second engineering center in the country. The headquarters will be at the Technological Research Institute (IPT), which develops innovations for public and private companies within the campus of the University of São Paulo (USP).
So, Google will have three Brazilian engineering pillars: the headquarters in Belo Horizonte, the headquarters in São Paulo, and remote work for the rest of the country.
“We have a very large business density in Brazil. The possibility of having two engineering offices around here was natural and explicit, one in Belo Horizonte and the other in São Paulo. We saw the attractiveness of the region and technical and economic feasibility to be engaged in this project within one of the largest universities in the world. We are sure that we will have access to an excellent workforce,” said Coelho.
Conversations between Google and IPT began in 2019. At the time, the institute began to implement the then new legal framework for science, technology and innovation within its campus. “Our goal with the milestone was to bring the market further and step up our innovations. We have 15 companies installed today. Google arrives with a product development center and opportunities for both parties, from the connection between professionals and laboratories to the development of workforce and startups”, said director of the IPT, Flavia Motta. Other IPT partner companies are Gerdau, Klabin, Lenovo, Siemens and Vale.
Google did not disclose how much the investment in the new engineering center will be. The work is expected to be completed in 2024, as part of the IPT Open Experience innovation complex, which has more than 120,000 m² of built area. The space will have 7 thousand m² and capacity for 400 employees.
This new engineering center will even house engineers who have just arrived at Google. In January of this year, the technology giant announced that it would hire 200 more engineering professionals by the end of 2023. “We are working for much more than that, which is shown by the fact that only the capacity of the new engineering center exceeds these hirings. . The country’s potential is very clear and our interest is to invest large numbers”, stated Google’s engineering director for Latin America, Berthier Ribeiro-Neto .
The hires that will work in this space will be for engineers specialized in privacy and online security. “We will have products created here in São Paulo, which will later go global. We will work first in areas such as cybersecurity, using technologies such as machine learning and reverse engineering. But the idea is for this center to become multidisciplinary over time,” said senior director of engineering at Google, Eduardo Tejada.
Another submarine cable from Google
Google also announced that it will build a new submarine cable passing through Brazilian territory. Called Firmina, the cable should start operating in the year 2023. The objective is to improve the speed of internet access and reduce latency for the consumption of Google products.
“It is part of our strategy to invest in our own submarine cables. Google is known for softwarebut initiatives to hardware are also essential due to the amount of data that travels through our platforms. This investment guarantees a more exclusive route and will improve the experience of search, email and other Google services in the country”, said head from Google Cloud Brazil, Marco Bravo,.
The technology giant’s cloud computing area has invested BRL 1.6 billion in technical infrastructure in the country over the last five years. Google already had three other submarine cables here: Júnior, which runs from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo; the Tannat, from Santos to Maldonado (Uruguay); and Monet, from Boca Raton (Florida) to Santos. Google Cloud’s investment value for the next five years was not disclosed, falling within the larger US$1.2 billion figure for Google as a whole for Latin America.
Scholarships for Tech Certifications
The technology giant also announced that it will offer 500,000 scholarships to train young Brazilians by 2026. Professional certifications will be in areas such as data analysis, project management, UX design and information technology (IT) support. The courses were created by Google and are hosted on the online learning platform Coursera. The four certifications total 800 hours of classes.
In the first phase of the project, 30,000 scholarships will be distributed to young people in the network of the Company-School Integration Center (CIEE). The CIEE will select young students or recent graduates from high school and technical courses, apprentices and graduates of the CIEE Apprenticeship Program, and students from higher education courses. People of color, LGBTQIA+, women and low-income people will be prioritized.
Google also announced the donation of BRL 10 million to the Instituto Rede Mulher Empreendedora, so that more than 200,000 women are impacted by the Ela Pode and Potência Feminina programs, which provide training and training for entrepreneurship and the job market. The technology giant has supported the institution since 2019.
Finally, Google for Startups announced a program that will provide financial support to black people interested in starting a career in software development. The goal is to support the training of 200 low-income black developers in the next 12 months.
Instituto Vamo que Vamo will select these students to study through the Trybe technology school. In addition to the per diem, Google will provide additional training on the company’s products and connection to the network of more than 300 startups that have undergone the Google for Startups acceleration. Currently, this network has more than 500 job positions open in technology-related positions.
Virtual assistant and digital wallet in Brazil
Finally, Google announced technologies that will finally reach the Brazilian market. The first of these is the virtual assistant equipped with Duplex artificial intelligence. Launched at the Google I/O conference in 2018, the assistant calls humans and uses natural conversation to perform small tasks. In the United States, Duplex orders pizza and makes restaurant reservations.
Here, the virtual assistant participates in three tests. The first test is contacting companies to update their opening hours on Google. More than 50,000 Brazilian entrepreneurs have already been contacted randomly, through 200 daily calls from the technology giant. “The goal is to reach 20 million such updates worldwide. We want Brazil to make a major contribution to this number,” said head of Google Assistant partnerships in Latin America, Marco Oliveira,.
The second test is for buying movie tickets. The Google Assistant guides the user through seat selection and automates some points of the Ingresso.com app experience, such as check in and Check-out. Finally, the third test is to guide users to find their polling place for the 2022 presidential election.
“We are ensuring not only a smoother and faster experience when updating information and purchasing tickets, but also helping especially those who feel less confident when browsing the web,” added Oliveira.
The second technology that will arrive in Brazil is the company’s digital wallet. Google Wallet will allow Android OS users to store documents and cards in one. The service is yet to replace the Google Play payments app. According to Coelho, Google Wallet should arrive in the country “soon.”
