Google pours $700 mn in Poland as it pulls out from Russia

As Google paused all ads sales in Russia amid the Ukraine invasion, the tech giant on Monday announced to invest nearly $700 million in the purchase and development of The Warsaw HUB, a modern office complex right in the heart of Poland's capital city.

Google had moved into The Warsaw Hub as a tenant last year, opening a new office there - a home to teams working primarily on its most advanced solutions powering Google Cloud and its many global customers.

"It is already our largest site working on cloud technologies in Europe. With this new investment, across our sites in Warsaw we will have capacity for 2500 employees, with potential for future growth," said Magdalena Kotlarczy, Country Director, Poland. The company employs more than 1000 Googlers in the country.

"Only last year, we added over 350 people, opened our new office in Warsaw and launched a Google Cloud region - the first such investment not only in Poland, but in Central and Eastern Europe," Kotlarczy added. Last week, Google announced it will provide $10 million to local organisations helping refugees from the war in Ukraine who arrive into Poland.

"The funding will support both immediate humanitarian efforts and assistance for refugees in the first weeks of their stay in Poland, as well as their longer-terms needs," it added. After blocking Russian media outlets, Google last week said it paused all ad sales in the country in response to the ongoing Ukraine invasion.

"The Russian invasion of Ukraine is both a tragedy and a humanitarian disaster in the making," Kent Walker, President, Global Affairs at Google, wrote in a blogpost. Earlier, Google had indefinitely paused the monetisation of Russian state-funded media such as RT and Sputnik across its platforms.