• Bloomberg, Tuesday, December 7, 2010 12:35 PM

Alan Eustace, Google's SVP of engineering and research, calls China the "heart" of the Internet's future, reports Bloomberg. And while political scientists and economists have been saying as much for years, the sentiment is striking coming from Google, considering its rocky relationship with the Asian nation. Because of China's great promise, Google has every intention of invading the country. "Maps and display advertising are areas where Google can expand and innovate in China, even without a search page in the world's largest Internet market," writes Bloomberg, citing comments by Eustace.

In March, Google shut its Chinese search service and redirected local users to its unfiltered Hong Kong site. China renewed Google's Internet license in July, after the company stopped automatically redirecting users to the Hong Kong site and put in place a so-called landing page that requires users to opt for the alternative service. Still, "Search is only one piece of our business," Eustace told reporters after a Google Innovation conference in Beijing. "There are lots of areas we can innovate. It's not a narrow slice."

Read the whole story at Bloomberg »