Youngkin celebrates $1 billion investment from Google

Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) thanked Google for a $1 billion investment toward facilities in Virginia .

The investment will go toward data centers across the commonwealth, including a center in Reston, where the governor spoke from. It will also open a new campus in Prince William County.

“I want to thank Google for believing in Virginia but most importantly for believing in Virginians,” Youngkin said. "Google's $1 billion investment is a continued demonstration that that ecosystem is one worth investing in. I think it's also a demonstration that Virginia is competing to win, and we want to be at the forefront. We recognize what it means to be at the forefront, which is not that you can rest on your laurels, but that you have to continue to run because guess what? All of our competitors are running to catch up."

According to Youngkin, this facility will help develop "the workforces of all workforces" as the company is leading advances in technology including artificial intelligence. Youngkin alluded to Google's Gemini AI chatbot in calling for "guardrails." It has been in the works since March 2023, when it functioned under the name Bard.

“With great opportunity, there is also risk. Guardrails around protecting personal information for Virginians, guardrails against biases and potential discriminatory outcomes that might come with a new technology," Youngkin said. "We need to make sure that we’re paying attention to the outcomes — guardrails around the application of artificial intelligence that could be used to deceive.”

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Google issued its most recent guardrail around Gemini in preventing it from answering questions related to any elections worldwide. This announcement came last month, ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

The company also suspended the chatbot’s image-generation feature after complaints that it was too largely focused on producing images of minorities over white people. These images were "inaccurate or even offensive" in some cases, and the company is continuing to improve the feature while it's suspended.