Google has temporarily halted construction of a huge site in San Jose, in Silicon Valley , as part of its plan to cut costs, CNBC reported Friday.

And the "Alphabet" group, which owns Google, announced early this year that it would cut about 12,000 jobs worldwide, justifying this with a challenging economic reality.

Alphabet reported lower-than-expected revenue and profits in the last three months of last year, as difficult economic conditions lead to a decline in its advertising business.

A site in San Jose has been cleared for the Downtown West project, with construction expected to begin by the end of this year, according to a CNBC report.

The report quoted unnamed people as saying that the project was temporarily halted, without notifying the contractors about the date of its resumption.

The 80-acre (32-hectare) site includes offices, residential units and public gardens, according to CNBC.

The cut in Alphabet's budget follows a massive hiring wave during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic by internet companies scrambling to meet the growing demand for their services during lockdowns.

On the other hand, the Google search engine found itself under pressure with the advent of Microsoft's generative Chat GPT program, which interacts with humans and can produce all kinds of texts on demand.