CUPERTINO, CALIF. — Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) will open a $1 billion office campus in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, a move that is expected to add more than 3,000 new jobs to the local economy.
The move is part of a larger, $430 billion expansion and capital investment program that the Cupertino-based tech giant projects will bring about 20,000 new jobs to the country over the next five years.
According to the Raleigh News & Observer, North Carolina’s Economic Investment Committee, for its part, approved a job creation and tax incentives plan for Apple that was valued at $845 million over 40 years, the largest such grant in state history.
The local newspaper also reports that the campus will span about 1 million square feet and will be located in Wake County on a site near the border of Cary and Morrisville, two smaller towns on the south side of the triangle. A construction timeline has not yet been released.
As part of its commitment to the Tar Heel State, Apple plans to launch a $100 million fund to support local schools and invest $110 million in improving pieces of local infrastructure, such as bridges and telecommunications systems.
The new positions coming to the Research Triangle — an area bounded by Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill that is a hotbed of tech and life sciences growth — will be concentrated in highly specialized fields such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and software engineering.
Apple’s broader expansion initiative includes adding nearly 4,000 people to its teams in Culver City, California; Boulder, Colorado; and metro Boston by 2026.
Construction is also underway on the company’s $1 billion campus in Austin, with employees expected to start moving in next year. Construction of that project began in November 2019. In addition, expansion plans in terms of real estate and hiring also are in progress in Seattle and Waukee, Iowa.
“At this moment of recovery and rebuilding, Apple is doubling down on our commitment to U.S. innovation and manufacturing with a generational investment reaching communities across all 50 states,” says Apple CEO Tim Cook. “We’re creating jobs in cutting-edge fields — from 5G to silicon engineering to artificial intelligence — investing in the next generation of innovative new businesses, and in all our work, building toward a greener and more equitable future.”
Apple’s stock price opened at $134.83 per share on Monday, April 26, up 91 percent from $70.45 per share a year ago.
— Taylor Williams