Google enters NASA's orbit for space problem

In the latest sign of its ambitious growth plans, Google has signed a 40-year lease to secure space for a huge office complex that will be built on a federal government research center near the Internet search leader's Silicon Valley headquarters.

The 110,000 sqm campus announced on Wednesday fulfills a vision that Google first laid out with the NASA Ames Research Center in 2005. The NASA center is within a 10-minute drive of Google's headquarters in Mountain View.

Google anticipates needing the additional space for the thousands of workers it expects to hire as it tries to mine more profits from the Internet's advertising market and expand into other areas of technology and media.