Facebook to add 500 employees once new Cambridge office built

Facebook, which was famously founded in a Harvard University dorm room, will soon open a new office in Cambridge big enough to add 500 employees, the company said yesterday.

“We have secured a lease at 100 Binney Street from Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. to expand our engineering presence in the Boston area as part of our continued commitment to investing in the Boston technology ecosystem,” said Ryan Mack, Facebook Boston site lead, in a statement. “We’re delighted to be here and excited for what the future holds.”

Facebook will move to its new office after the building is completed sometime next year. The three-floor office is expected to have room for 650 employees, a dramatic increase over the more that 100 staffers the social media giant has at its current Cambridge location. The building will also be a new office for pharma giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, which plans to employ 300 workers there.

A Facebook spokesman declined to say what employees at the company’s new office will work on, but said it will focus on making better use of the company’s data, hardware and software through machine learning — a form of artificial intelligence. Last year, Facebook said its Boston office was working on tools for developers and Terragraph, an effort to improve Wi-Fi in cities.

Facebook was famously founded in a Harvard dorm room by Mark Zuckerberg, but didn’t return to Cambridge until years after becoming a social media behemoth. Its initial return in 2013 drew widespread praise from local officials, and was seen as a homecoming.