- Apple has announced it is building a $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas. These are the details about Apple’s new campus.
Apple has revealed a plan to build a new campus in Austin, Texas as part of a broad expansion in the city. In a nearby facility, Apple is already preparing to ship the all-new Mac Pro to customers starting in December.
“Building the Mac Pro, Apple’s most powerful device ever, in Austin is both a point of pride and a testament to the enduring power of American ingenuity,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “With the construction of our new campus in Austin now underway, Apple is deepening our close bond with the city and the talented and diverse workforce that calls it home. Responsible for 2.4 million American jobs and counting, Apple is eager to write our next chapter here and to keep contributing to America’s innovation story.”
The all-new Mac Pro has been unveiled at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference in June. And Mac Pro units are now in production in Austin, Texas and will soon ship to customers across the Americas.
The 244,000-square-foot Mac Pro facility currently employs more than 500 people in a range of roles, including electrical engineers and electronics assemblers — who build each unique unit to customers’ specifications.
Apple’s expansion in Austin, Texas was originally announced in January 2018. And the company announced it was planning to increase its investment in manufacturing, engineering, and other jobs across the US. As a result, Apple is on track to contribute $350 billion to the US economy between 2018 and 2023 and the company will hire an additional 20,000 employees in cities across the country.
The new $1 billion 3-million-square-foot campus will initially house 5,000 employees with the capacity to grow to 15,000 and is expected to open in 2022. And Apple is steadily growing in Austin with approximately 7,000 employees in the city — which is more than a 50% increase in the past 5 years alone.
As part of Apple’s commitment to respecting the historical and geographical significance of the area, Apple is partnering with Austin-based Bartlett Tree Experts to preserve and increase the diversity of native trees on the 133-acre property. There will be thousands of trees spanning over 20 varieties native to Texas are planned for the campus, which is significantly more than were on the site before construction started. And the site will be designed to maximize green space with landscaping covering over 60% of the campus, including a 50-acre nature and wildlife preserve that will be open to the public.
This facility will run on 100% renewable energy, including from solar power generated on-site. And earlier this year, Apple launched its Community Education Initiative in Austin, partnering with Austin Community College, Austin area public schools, and other community partners to bring Swift coding into the classroom. Austin Community College happens to be one of the first community colleges in the country to offer App Development with Swift to train its students to design and develop apps.
Apple’s new Mac Pro is 15,000 times faster than the original Mac. And Apple and its manufacturing partners invested over $200 million in the Mac Pro facility in Austin. The company also built out the complex assembly line where the Mac Pro is produced. And each Mac Pro travels a distance of 1,000 feet along the production line with some components requiring precision placement within the width of a human hair.
Mac Pro was designed and engineered in California. And Apple uses 9,000 suppliers across 50 states. The Mac Pro alone contains hundreds of components from companies in 19 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, and Washington. The parts include computer processors from Arizona and Oregon and graphics processors from New York as well as electrical components from Maine, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
Apple is on track to hit its 2018 commitment of contributing $350 billion to the US economy by 2023. And the company will spend $30 billion in capital expenditures during that same period. Plus the company supports 2.4 million jobs across the U.S., including 450,000 manufacturing and operations jobs and 90,000 direct employees in all 50 states.
Over $1 billion from Apple’s $5 billion Advanced Manufacturing Fund has already been invested in American companies to foster innovation and growth in the US manufacturing sector. This includes $450 million distributed to Corning in Harrodsburg, Kentucky to support its research and development into state-of-the-art glass processes, equipment, and materials integral to the delivery of next-generation consumer devices, $390 million awarded to Finisar in Sherman, Texas to exponentially increase its R&D spending and high-volume production of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, and $10 million allocated to the Elysis aluminum partnership to bring advancements in green aluminum manufacturing to the commercial market.
U.S. President Donald Trump toured the Apple plant with CEO Tim Cook in Texas. During the event, President Trump inaccurately took credit for Apple’s decision to build Mac Pros at the facility. The factory that they were touring — which is run by Flex — has been manufacturing Mac Pros since 2013.
