Google is opening a cutting-edge online technology center at the studio of one of Cuba's most famous artists, offering free Internet at speeds nearly 70 times faster than those now available to the Cuban public.

United States President Barack Obama says Google's efforts in Cuba are part of a wider plan to improve access to the Internet across the island. The U.S. technology giant has built a studio equipped with dozens of laptops, cellphones and virtual-reality goggles at the complex run by Alexis Leiva Machado, a sculptor known as Kcho. Obama said Sunday that Google was also launching a broader effort to improve Cubans' Internet access across the island.

Google's head of Cuba operations, Brett Perlmutter, said the company was optimistic that the Google+Kcho.Mor studio would be part of a broader cooperative effort to bring Internet access to the Cuban people.