As rival tech giant Apple readies its huge new headquarters in Silicon Valley, Alphabet's Google is buying up real estate parcels like a land speculator, CNBC reported yesterday. Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., has purchased 52 properties in Sunnyvale, Calif., for $820 million from a real estate development partner, CBRE. A real estate brokerage has been quietly assembling the properties on behalf of the search giant. The purchases fill in gaps between multiple smaller campuses in Sunnyvale — the long-time home of Yahoo — that Google has purchased or leased in recent years. The move comes one month after the company won exclusive rights to negotiate with the city of San Jose for the purchase of 16 tracts of land near that city's convention center and pro hockey arena. Google, which reported on Monday that it now has more than 72,000 employees, needs room to expand as it looks to hire even more workers to sustain its growth. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
