I think their logic is 3 fold: 1) Everyone benefits greatly from collaboration across companies and researchers at univiersities 2) There is a lot of value for

I think their logic is 3 fold: 1) Everyone benefits greatly from collaboration across companies and researchers at univiersities 2) There is a lot of value for google (and everyone else) as a company to show their achievements for many reasons, such as attacting talent, partners and so on. 3) And lastly, they don't expect the secrecy of their research to accomplish much, i.e. someone might re-discover similar results not that far into the future