The country is being considered along with Vietnam for Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects that information technology giant Google plans to establish to counter US President Donald Trump’s tariff offensive. Google plans to produce in Camarines Sur its signature laptop Chromebook.

The facility will be located in CamSur Uptown Global City, which is in the process of being declared a Philippine Export Zone Authority (PEZA)-registered economic zone.

Google will also start new product introductions (NPI) for its Pixel, Pixel Pro and Pixel Fold phones in Vietnam. Development of the lower-end Pixel A series will remain in China, Nosy Tarsee learned.

The NPI, which includes developing, verifying, and fine-tuning production processes, is the most critical stage when a company brings out a new gadget. Hundreds of company engineers and suppliers are involved, and heavy investment in testing equipment and tooling machines is required.

In this way the company ensures the new design will actually work according to the blueprints.

Despite working for years to diversify their supply chains, Google still carries out NPIs for their smartphones in China due to the complexity and difficulty of making a product from scratch in other locations that do not have such mature supply chains.

The latest developments came as the tech industry faces mounting uncertainties over Trump’s policy, which has sent shockwaves through the supply chain since April last year.