Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Odds and ends, Xserve, Apple

As Mike mentioned in the news roundup yesterday, word is going around that the corporate overlords at Apple are planning to build a massive server farm in the state of North Carolina within the next decade or so. How do we know? Because the company is working on getting a few nice tax breaks to go along with the deal, eventually worth about $46 million if Apple fulfills their end of the agreement. Their end of the agreement being a huge investment of a whopping $1 billion (that’s over 333,000 Xserves, if that is indeed what they’re installing — and we bet not) into an economy that could probably use it. What exactly will go in there? We aren’t sure — lawmakers say the investment is worth it, and obviously Apple isn’t showing their cards.

[Note: the $1B investment figure is not an upfront number, but rather a total investment over the first 9 years of operation. -Ed.]

But the facility, once up and running, will start by employing at least 100 people, so that’s a nice start. Google has apparently gone through the same deal with North Carolina recently, though their deal was a little smaller: $600 million investment for a server farm that opened last year.

More backend for Mobile Me? More power for the App Store or a project like it? A giant building full of Cubes running 24 hours a day? Or something we haven’t even dreamt of yet?

TUAWApple building server farm, secret lair in North Carolina originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 25 May 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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