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Cambridge has stopped one tech company from leaking to Boston.
Facebook announced Wednesday it will open a new office in Kendall Square next year. It also plans to hire more than 500 workers, bringing its Greater Boston staff count to 650. The social media giant’s new offices will take the top three floors of 100 Binney St., where Bristol-Myers Squibb is opening a drug-discovery center in early 2018, the Boston Globe reports.
The additional office space will give Facebook the ability to grow its machine-learning efforts as it looks to discern how the company’s products and data can optimally serve users. It will also house a company “Connectivity Lab” aimed at bringing Internet access to the 4 billion people around the world without it.
It was first reported in July the company was looking on both sides of the Charles River to expand up to 120K SF of offices. Its initial presence in the area was just three employees in 2013 working from Kendall Square. It has since grown to an 18K SF office with 150 employees.
Kendall Square has seen a drop in tech tenants lately, as growing life science companies have made Cambridge a lab-dominant market. The neighborhood’s tech community has increasingly looked to Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood, where Amazon announced in July it was moving into 150K SF at 253 Summer St.
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