Google commits to massive new London HQ

Google is finally going ahead with its plans to build a "landscraper" headquarters in London's King's Cross, more than three years after the project was first announced. The development, which will be Google's UK headquarters, was reportedly thrown into turmoil in 2015 when bosses in California threw out the original plans, by London-based architects AHMM, for being "too boring", and brought in a Thomas Heatherwick, designer of a new London bus, the Olympic cauldron, and the Garden Bridge. Further questions were raised in the wake of Britain's vote to leave the European Union about whether or not the search engine would want to base up to 7,000 employees in London. But in a speech on Tuesday at Google's current campus in King's Cross, chief executive Sundar Pichai confirmed the plans were going ahead. "Here in the UK, it's clear to me that computer science has a great future with the talent, educational institutions, and passion for innovation we see all around us," he said.