With new office for 20,000 in Bengaluru, Google aims to work around H1-B Visa issues for Indian IT employees

Google's plan to scale up its Bengaluru operations shows how US visa hurdles are pushing tech giants to move more critical hiring and work to India. Here is the full story.

As the US makes it harder and more costly for companies to hire foreign workers on H-1 B visas, Google is quietly deciding where its future workforce will be based. Instead of waiting on visas and approvals, the tech giant is placing a bigger bet on India, starting with a massive expansion plan in Bengaluru that could eventually house as many as 20,000 employees, Bloomberg reports. At the centre of this plan is Alembic City in Whitefield, one of Bengaluru’s busiest tech corridors. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has already leased one office tower here and secured options on two more. Together, the three towers span around 2.4 million square feet.

The report claims that the first tower, spread across roughly 6.5 lakh square feet, is set to open to employees in the coming months. Construction on the remaining two towers is scheduled to wrap up next year. While Alphabet has officially confirmed only the lease of the first building, people familiar with the plan say the full complex could accommodate up to 20,000 staff if all options are exercised.

That number is big. Google currently has around 14,000 people in India. A fully occupied Whitefield campus would more than double its local workforce, pushing India closer to the centre of Google’s global operations.

Alphabet, responding to queries from Bloomberg, said it already maintains a strong presence across multiple Indian cities, including Bengaluru, but did not comment on the additional towers or its total India headcount.

Behind this expansion lies a growing challenge for US tech companies, which is immigration. Changes under the Trump administration have made it tougher to bring skilled foreign workers into the US. Proposed hikes in H-1B visa fees, which reportedly up to $100,000 per application, have forced companies to rethink long-term hiring plans.

For Google and its peers, the answer is increasingly straightforward. Instead of moving Indian engineers to the US, build large teams in India itself. This approach avoids visa delays, cuts costs, and ensures companies do not lose access to critical talent. The report suggests that this recalibration is no longer temporary. It is becoming a core part of how global tech firms plan their workforce.