Raleigh-Durham’s Research Triangle Park will be the site of Apple’s first East Coast campus, an estimated $1-billion development it promises to begin creating thousands of new jobs in machine learning, artificial intelligence, software engineering and other fields, the company announced April 26.
While neither a construction timeline nor project team was announced, Wake County, N.C., said in a news release that Apple envisions the new campus to be “up and running as soon as possible with 3,000 jobs being created from 2023 until 2032.”
Apple also announced that it will establish a $100-million fund to support schools and community initiatives in the greater Raleigh-Durham area and across the state and plans to contribute more than $110 million in infrastructure spending to North Carolina counties with the greatest need. Funds are earmarked for broadband, roads and bridges and public schools.
“We are excited to welcome Apple to our thriving technology ecosystem,” said Michael Haley, executive director of Wake County Economic Development in a press release. “This is an important milestone that strengthens our position as a tech hub.”
Apple will join numerous other tech companies in the region, including IBM, Red Hat, Lenovo, SAS, Bandwidth, Citrix and Epic Games. County development officials estimated the average annual salary for Apple’s East Coast campus workers at roughly $185,000.
“Apple’s decision to join the community of 310 companies in Research Triangle Park is extraordinary,” added Scott Levitan, president and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation. “Its major commitments to public education, sustainability, infrastructure and partnerships with our universities and community colleges demonstrates corporate leadership starting day one.”
According to the tech company’s news release: “Apple’s new campus and engineering hub at RTP will accommodate the company’s growing research and development and engineering teams, among others. Like all Apple facilities, the new campus will run on 100% renewable energy from the first day the doors open.”
The technology giant also announced that it plans to simultaneously accelerate its spending and hiring plans across the U.S. Nationally, it says it will boost spending to $430 billion over the next five years and double hiring plans by an estimated 20,000 jobs.
Apple said in the release that it is “on track to meet its 2018 goal of creating 20,000 new jobs in the U.S. by 2023. Apple is setting a target of creating 20,000 additional jobs in states across the country over the next five years.
Gov. Roy Cooper (R), stated that once the jobs are created, incentives will become available. Under an agreement recently approved by a state incentives panel, Apple stands to receive $846 million over the next 39 years if the company can meet “job-creation and investment thresholds,” he said. The payments are calculated based on state income tax withholdings.
The state estimates the project will generate nearly $2 billion in additional state revenue through 2061 and more than $1.5 billion a year in economic impact , according to the governor’s office.
Apple is also expanding its workforce in Colorado, Massachusetts, Texas, Washington, New York, California and other states. It also announced plans for a $100-million distribution center near Indianapolis that could employ nearly 500 by the end of 2024.
