Google opens Campus Europaallee

For Google, Zurich remains an important investment location. Now the completed Campus Europaallee has been officially inaugurated. Innovation is just as much in focus as sustainability.

Editorial - 27 June 2022

The Swiss site is Google's largest development center outside the USA, and currently employs around 5,000 people. In the further development of the site, the focus is on the global sustainability strategy, says Google. Continuous product innovations are just as important, as demonstrated by YouTube.

The office premises on Europaallee, right next to Zurich's main train station, are officially open as of today. Patrick Warnking, Country Director Google Switzerland, is delighted and says: "We are very happy about this location. Switzerland and Google have always had a focus on innovation. I am particularly keen to ensure that all people and companies in Switzerland have access to the best technologies as well as training and education for a digital future. This is only possible thanks to strong local partnerships with universities, NGOs, organizations, publishers and companies."

Google relies heavily on local partnerships, especially in the design of public transport. This is shown, for example, by the cooperation with PubliBike, which makes it possible to commute between the two Google locations Hürlimann Areal and Europaallee on rentable bicycles. This is also to be mapped virtually - Google Maps now shows where the next bike station is located and whether free bikes or (e-)scooters are available from various providers. Google offers over 1500 modern bicycle parking spaces here on the Europaallee campus. This enables employees to commute to the office with a CO2 footprint of almost zero. The integration of traffic information from SBB and other transport providers is also being continuously expanded.

CO2-free by 2030 thanks to energy-efficient cloud technologies

Mobility is just one of many measures necessary to achieve Google's global sustainability goals 2030. Buildings leased by Google meet the latest energy and insulation standards and are powered by sustainable energy.

In the area of energy efficiency, cloud technologies and machine learning algorithms offer enormous potential for energy savings. For example, a Google data center today is on average twice as energy efficient as an average corporate data center. By directly controlling the cooling in Google's data centers, the AI-based recommendation system already ensures constant energy savings of 30 percent on average,

"Technologies such as cloud-based artificial intelligence are capable of driving large potential savings today. Such technological advances will enable us at Google to meet operational power consumption with carbon-free energy sources on the same regional power grid, seven days a week. In concrete terms, this means that every question asked of Google, every email sent using Gmail, and every YouTube video watched will be entirely carbon-free," explains Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Technical Infrastructure.

YouTube made in Switzerland

"High-quality work is being done in Zurich, and that is the main reason for the sustainable, organic growth of the site. Switzerland in particular has so far offered very good framework conditions," adds Hölzle. This is how Google intends to continue growing.

Founded in 2006, YouTube's goal is to give everyone a voice, no matter where they are in the world. The video platform has over 2 billion monthly logged-in users, and 500 hours of video material are uploaded to the platform every minute.

Geoff van der Meer, Vice President Engineering at YouTube's largest development site outside the U.S., in Zurich, says of his team's development work: "Operating such a platform entails great responsibility. Thanks to products like Content ID or YouTube Analytics, we can meet this demand for users and creators. We are particularly proud that the aforementioned functions are to a significant extent developed and continuously improved in Switzerland." YouTube in Zurich is particularly focused on providing Creators with helpful services. Other innovations from Switzerland mentioned include the "Creator Studio" - the workspace for Creators that enables video editing before uploading.

For his part, Andreas Briese, Director YouTube Partnerships Central Europe, adds with regard to the active YouTube creator scene: "We are pleased that YouTube creators like 'Sally's World' offer users such creative content, which makes YouTube as a platform diverse and colorful and is an inspiration for many people.

The YouTube developments made in Switzerland are representative of many other Google products on which the employees in Zurich work every day, such as Google Search, Google Assistant, Google Maps, account security, Google Calendar and other cloud services, as well as the applied research in the field of artificial intelligence.