JLR has signed a lease on new office space in Portland, Oregon to grow their technology and research center there, per a regional business publication. The new space, housed in a reused 1940s factory building, allows them to grow their technological presence in the hot Oregon tech job market.
JLR opened the Portland office in 2013 as part of their plan to expand to several international technology hubs. Taking advantage of the tech talent in the Portland area (among others, Intel has a significant presence there), they use the space to build up their technological know-how as automaking turns as much into a computer science field as an engineering project. There are currently 80 employees in Oregon. Over time, this office has served as an incubator for new tech businesses, a way to develop and test new autonomous and connected driving technology, and a North American complement to the research done in the UK.
The new space is in the Redfox Commons, a development built from former factory space. The building was originally the site of the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition, an early catalyst for growth in the Portland area that celebrated the centennial of the end of the iconic expedition. In the 1940s, it was the factory for J.A. Freeman and Sons, who made agricultural equipment such as hay balers. It was recently converted into office space, with the building stripped to its original heavy timbers and rebuilt, an interesting and award-winning adaptive reuse project.
JLR continues to grow its international tech hub footprint, with nine current operations in the USA, Hungary, Ireland, UK, China, India, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Their recent expansion into the latter three countries responded to the 2023 Big Tech staffing cutbacks, trying to get the best and brightest in the tech world to help develop products. As JLR also expands its partnership with NVIDIA, whose systems will underpin next-generation vehicles, there is also a need to develop a lot of new tech.
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