Google announced today that it will open an office in downtown Rochester, Minn., to be close to Mayo Clinic.
The tech giant plans to have an office up and running with a handful of workers as soon as possible, given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to a news release posted on the website of the 20-year Destination Medical Center project. Under the DMC, $585 million in state and local government infrastructure funds are expected to leverage about $5 billion of private investment in Rochester, which is about an hour and a half drive south of Minneapolis.
Google will occupy space at Collider Coworking in the historic Conley-Maass-Downs building in downtown Rochester. The news comes nearly a year and a half after Google and Mayo Clinic announced a 10-year partnership to use advanced cloud computing, data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve healthcare delivery.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of coming together to come up with innovative ways of tackling health challenges,” said Chris Mueller, Rochester site lead and software engineer for Google Cloud.
“We are excited to officially join the Rochester community and deepen our collaboration with Mayo Clinic as we work together to transform health through technology,” Mueller said.
Google has already helped Mayo Clinic move its data to the cloud. Projects already underway include using AI to help physicians develop radiotherapy plans. Google has also helped Mayo Clinic better respond to the coronavirus pandemic.