A rare look inside Google’s most secretive Pixel Hardware Labs

I’ve been writing about technology for more than 12 years, and in that time, I’ve visited my fair share of smartphone assembly lines, design studios, and manufacturing hubs — places where the devices we use every day are built, tested, and refined long before they reach our hands. There’s something special about going behind the scenes, watching some of the brightest minds in the industry at work, and seeing just how much thought and precision go into a product that millions of people will someday rely on daily. During a recent trip to Taipei, Taiwan, I got to experience one such place firsthand: Google’s Pixel Hardware Labs, the company’s second-largest hardware R&D facility outside the US.