Sep. 24--The United States will move beyond the recession with growth generated by advanced-manufacturing and information-gathering companies, Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt said Wednesday.

"Where will the growth come from in America?" Schmidt asked during a Pittsburgh Technology Council-sponsored event at Heinz Field. "It's not going to come from high-volume, low-wage manufacturing jobs. It's not going to come from the service industry ...

"It's going to come from ... high-tech manufacturing jobs here in America, using very sophisticated supply and manufacturing lines" and benefiting from the ever-expanding wealth of data that's being collected and made available instantly, he said.

He called Pittsburgh "a city with a great story" about its own economic comeback in a speech to hundreds of college students and technology workers.

In town for a "Pre-G-20" forum to mark today's start of the Group of 20 economic summit, Schmidt touched on several trends that stand out in the technology council's latest report on the local industry, released yesterday.

Employment in advanced manufacturing -- robotics, specialty metals and other areas -- rose by 4.1 percent from 2005 to 2007 in 13 counties in Western Pennsylvania, the report said, citing the latest available figures. Life sciences and environmental technology had smaller gains.

Energy technology jobs in coal, petroleum, natural gas, nuclear power and other fields showed the most dramatic jump -- the sector had 910 companies by the end of 2007, with employment up by 13.8 percent to 30,448 people.

Schmidt is credited with growing Google from a Silicon Valley startup to a worldwide search engine and information enterprise since he started there in 2001.

In 2006, Mountain View-based Google created a Pittsburgh Engineering Office on Carnegie Mellon University's campus.

Last week, it announced the acquisition of CMU spinoff company ReCaptcha Inc., which uses word puzzles based on printing in old books to protect computer users from spam and fraud. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.

Google is again considering acquisitions, said Schmidt, 54. His company had more than $19 billion in cash and short-term investments at the end of last quarter.

Analysts said Google typically buys 10 to 12 companies a year. The company acquires smaller rivals, including startups, to boost its technology development, he said.

Most of Schmidt's talk focused on the benefits of ever-strengthening technology that spreads information around the globe so quickly that it's often disruptive and uncomfortable. "This is all happening so quickly that we haven't really figured out how it is changing our society," he said.

The average Japanese citizen uses a 160-megabit Internet connection, he said -- far beyond what's available in the United States, which ranks 13th in the world in broadband penetration.

Social network users who once had 100 to 200 contacts now can "feel like global citizens," and within 15 years, devices like iPods will be able to store 85 years' worth of video. "You'll die before you can watch it all," he joked.

The Navy built a complex in 1973 in San Diego that, when viewed from Google Earth's perspective from the sky, looked like a swastika. "No one had noticed it before," he said, and the building was altered.

Technology will help political campaigns and governments better gauge public opinion, and even test programs. An economic stimulus plan could be tried out for three months, then easily assessed for results. Dozens of versions of health care reform legislation could be analyzed, to find out how well each one would work and where the pitfalls are.

Making the most of all the information out there depends largely on getting computers worldwide to talk to each other. Before the global financial crisis, "The computers knew they were overextended. But we didn't ask them," Schmidt said.

Kim Leonard can be reached via e-mail or at 412-380-5606.

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