谷歌悄悄在华设立第三家办事处

Google has quietly opened a third office in China, illustrating its growing hardware and ad businesses even as its signature search engine is blocked there.

尽管谷歌(Google)招牌性的搜索引擎在中国仍遭屏蔽，但该公司已悄悄在华开设了第三个办事处，这显示出其硬件和广告业务的不断壮大。

The new office is based in Shenzhen, the former fishing village turned Asian Silicon Valley which borders Hong Kong and is home to domestic tech giants like Tencent and Huawei.

这个新办事处位于腾讯(Tencent)和华为(Huawei)等中国科技巨头的总部所在地深圳。

Several US companies, including Facebook, are banned in China but continue to generate big business from the country. Increasingly global-facing manufacturers, such as Huawei and Xiaomi, and service providers like hotels and tourism groups, are turning to the likes of Google and Facebook to advertise their wares overseas.

包括Facebook在内的多家美国公司在中国境内遭到屏蔽，但它们依然从中国市场创造了不少生意。华为和小米(Xiaomi)等越来越面向全球的制造商、以及酒店和旅游集团等服务提供商，正转向谷歌和Facebook之类的公司来为自己的产品在海外打广告。

Google’s latest office, first reported in TechCrunch, will supplement offices in Beijing and Shanghai which together employ some 600 people, mainly engineers and sales staff. In an email sent to “China Googlers”, the tech company’s China head said a number of domestic staff were regularly shuttling to Shenzhen on business.

由TechCrunch最先报道的谷歌新办事处，将对其在北京和上海的办事处构成补充。谷歌京、沪办事处合计有约600名雇员，主要是工程师和销售人员。在发给“中国谷歌员工”的一份电邮中，谷歌中国业务主管表示，在中国有一些谷歌员工会定期到深圳地区出差。

“We’ve heard a lot of feedback that there was a need for a space to work from while in the area—so, after a few months of scouting, we recently signed a lease for a serviced office in Shenzhen,” he wrote.

“我们此前听到很多反馈意见，认为在这个地区需要一个工作地点。所以我们经过几个月的考察，最近签了一份位于深圳的服务办公室租约，”他写道。

While starting small, ultimately the Shenzhen office could match Beijing and Shanghai in size with around 300 workers. Google also recently opened its first AI lab in China.

尽管一开始规模较小，但谷歌深圳办事处最终可能会与京、沪办事处规模相仿，员工人数达到约300人。谷歌不久前还在华设立了其首个人工智能(AI)实验室。

In addition to sales staff, Google employs engineers working on global products and is moving deeper into hardware, which is axiomatic with Shenzhen. That was boosted by its $1.1bn deal last September to acquire the smartphone manufacturing operations of HTC along with some 2,000 staff, a move described by the Taiwanese smartphone maker’s co-founder as allowing Google to “supercharge” its hardware business.

除了销售人员，谷歌还聘用了研发全球产品的工程师，并在更深入地进军硬件领域，而深圳对此的意义不言自明。进军硬件领域之举得到了去年9月以11亿美元收购宏达电(HTC)智能手机制造业务(以及约2000名员工)的交易的提振。这家台湾智能手机生产商的联合创始人称，这笔交易使得谷歌能够“加速发展”其硬件业务。