Ondrej Holzman A $2 billion investment is to turn a bankrupt sapphire factory in Arizona into a data center. In Mesa, near Phoenix, Apple originally wanted to make sapphire glass for its iPhones, but that project didn't work out, so the California company is changing plans. They will turn the huge premises into their next data center.
A sapphire factory operated in Mesa until a few months ago. But in October of last year, a shock came when the company GT Advanced Technologies announced collapse. It failed to produce a satisfactory amount of sapphire of sufficient quality and had to close down. Apple will now convert 120 square meters of Arizona land into a data center.
[do action=”quote”]It is one of our biggest investments in history.[/do]
"We are proud to continue our investment in the United States with a new data center in Arizona that will serve as the command center for our global network," said Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet. "This multi-billion dollar project is one of our largest investments in history."
The new data center will employ 150 people full-time and its construction will bring an additional 300 to 500 jobs, he said pros Bloomberg Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. Apple should invest two billion dollars (49 billion crowns) in the project, and the center will be XNUMX percent powered by renewable energy.
So there will likely be fewer jobs in the end than Apple promised from the sapphire factory, but Governor Ducey still boasts that since his plan to invest in Arizona he didn't let go, and will try his luck with a new project. The Californian giant also plans to build and finance solar projects that should produce energy for more than 14,5 Arizona homes. This means building a solar farm with a production of 70 megawatts. Construction of the data center should begin in 2016, because according to the concluded agreement, GTAT has the right to use the premises until December 2015.
The data center is a much bigger investment than Apple originally made with GT Advanced Technologies. As part of the installments, he was supposed to pay the specialized company almost 600 million dollars, with the fact that he was renting the GTAT factory. But Apple's terms were so harsh that the GTAT sapphire production bet failed. You can find complete coverage of the entire case <a href="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1932/8043/files/200721_ODSTOUPENI_BEZ_UDANI_DUVODU__EN.pdf?v=1595428404" data-gt-href-en="https://en.notsofunnyany.com/">here</a>.
