Apple to invest $2 billion to convert sapphire plant to data center .
Apple said it plans to invest $2 billion to convert a failed sapphire glass plant in Arizona into a data center.
Apple
teamed up with GT Advanced Technologies, to set up the plant in Mesa in
2013 to manufacture scratch-resistant sapphire screens for Apple
devices.
But GT Advanced filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in
October and closed the plant, which was owned by Apple, after the
company's sapphire glass was left out of Apple's newest iPhones.
"This
multibillion-dollar project is one of the largest investments we've
ever made," Apple spokeswoman Rachel Wolf said in a statement on Monday.
The
$2 billion investment will stretch over 10 years with a 30
year-commitment from Apple to keep the facility running, Daniel
Scarpinato, a spokesman for Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, said by email.
The
facility will be a data center as well as a command center for managing
Apple's other data centers and networks, which handle traffic from
services like iTunes, iCloud and Siri.
It is expected to create
600 engineering and construction jobs at the data center, Apple said,
adding that the plant would be powered mostly by solar energy.
As it wound down its sapphire production in October, GT Advanced said it was laying off about 650 employees at the plant.
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