Google expects to spend up to $30 billion (€22 billion) on foreign acquisitions as it expands into markets such as hardware, according to a disclosure made to US securities regulators.

The trawl for big overseas purchases has already seen the company come close to forging at least one big deal, though talks over a proposed $4 billion-$5 billion acquisition of an unnamed foreign business were called off late last year.

The scale of Google's global acquisition hopes was revealed in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission in response to questions from regulators about what it plans to do with its overseas cash mountain, which reached $34.5 billion at the end of March.

Despite Google’s ambitions executives at other US tech firms warn there is a shortage of attractive, large-scale tech companies available for purchase outside the US, particularly in the internet industry.

Core business That has opened the possibility of Google using an acquisition drive to move further from its core business, extending a radical diversification that has seen it venture into driverless cars to high-altitude balloons.

“It is reasonable to forecast that Google needs between $20 billion to $30 billion of foreign earnings to fund potential acquisitions of foreign targets and foreign technology rights from US targets in 2013 and beyond,” the company wrote.

It added: “We continue to expect substantial use of our offshore earnings for acquisitions. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014)