Google’s Increased Focus on Hardware Sees $30 Billion Investments Overseas

According to recently revealed letters from Silicon Valley giant Google to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from December 2013, the tech behemoth is planning to pump $30 billion into foreign companies in the coming years — all in hopes of propping up their plans to become the next American technology and hardware empire. Specifically, the company is looking to fuel its international market growth by investing in smart mergers and acquisitions worldwide, while investing significant amounts of capital into contract manufacturers that can help them bring their ever expanding menagerie of high-end tech products to the global community.

What’s Driving the $30 Billion in Overseas Expenditures?
For many people on the outside of the tech world, the fact that Google needs to send $30 billion of foreign investment outside of the U.S. just doesn’t make any sense. After all, Google is only interested in smartphones, tablets, and search engines, right? Of course, there is a lot more at play here than the company’s desire to expand its domination of the smartphone and online advertising markets. For Google, $30 billion, or however much it takes, is well worth spreading its authority in many different tech spheres to the four corners of the earth.

This is a goal the company has been pursuing voraciously for years. Android-based smartphones were just the beginning. The firm just purchased tech start-up SkyBox for $500 million, and with their cheap satellite imagery technology, hopes to improve its mission of giving open access maps to the entire world through the Google Maps and Google Earth services. Outsourcing the production of those satellites will save the company a pretty penny, indeed. Likewise, the company’s push to make its wearable computer, Google Glass, and automated Google cars a reality is driving up its need for cheap labor and expansion, neither of which it will fine too easily stateside.