Samsung has just flung open the doors of its flashy new Silicon Valley headquarters, located just seven miles down the road from arch-rival Apple.
Currently home to 700 employees but with space for 2,000, Samsung’s increased presence in the area is likely to have nearby tech firms nervously wondering if they’re about to lose some of their best engineers to the Korean firm.
The brand new 10-story building in North San Jose cost $300 million to build and covers 1.1 billion square feet of floorspace. Amenities include a star-shaped cafeteria, sports facilities, and so-called “chill zones.”
Samsung says the complex, which includes gardens and open-air spaces within the main building, has been specially designed to “increase collaboration by encouraging more spontaneous encounters between staff, while also bringing nature closer to the workplace to increase employees’ contentment and creativity.”
The campus, which took two years to build, will focus mainly on R&D work and sales operations for the firm’s U.S. semiconductor business, whose current customers include the likes of Apple and Nvidia. After Intel, Samsung is the world’s biggest chip maker, so the company will be keenly looking for new related opportunities in the Silicon Valley area and beyond.
Jaesoo Han, Samsung president of Device Solutions America, said the opening of the new space represented “a major milestone” for the firm, adding it was its “most strategically important Samsung facility in the U.S. and also our biggest investment in Silicon Valley.”
Meanwhile, Samsung CEO Dr. Oh-Hyun Kwon said at Thursday’s opening ceremony the new campus is a signal that the company is “laying the groundwork for a more aggressive pace of growth over the next several decades.”
Samsung’s Silicon Valley neighbors will have duly taken note.
