A major tech giant is heading to North Carolina. Apple announced its plans on Monday (April 26) to build an east coast engineering hub and campus in the Research Triangle, investing more than $1 billion and creating thousands of high-paying jobs. According to ABC 11, the campus would be Apple's first entirely new U.S. campus in over 20 years.
"As a North Carolina native, I'm thrilled Apple is expanding and creating new long-term job opportunities in the community I grew up in," said Jeff Williams, Apple's Chief Operating Officer. "We're proud that this new investment will also be supporting education and critical infrastructure projects across the state. Apple has been a part of North Carolina for nearly two decades, and we're looking forward to continuing to grow and a bright future ahead."
Apple will begin hiring immediately, seeking to fill at least 3,000 jobs with an average salary of $185,000 per year. Anticipated jobs include machine learning, artificial intelligence, software engineering, and "other cutting edge fields," ABC 11 reports. The company will lease local office space until construction on the 1 million-square-foot campus is completed in Wake County.
"At this moment of recovery and rebuilding, Apple is doubling down on our commitment to U.S. innovation and manufacturing with a generational investment reaching communities across all 50 states," said Apple CEO Tim Cook. "We're creating jobs in cutting-edge fields — from 5G to silicon engineering to artificial intelligence — investing in the next generation of innovative new businesses, and in all our work, building towards a greener and more equitable future."
According to Apple, the investments made by the company will eventually generate more than $1.5 billion annually to North Carolina's economy. The tech giant is one of many companies that have recently announced plans to invest in the state.
"Even in a pandemic, North Carolina has been on a run with 10 companies and thousands of new jobs in both rural and urban North Carolina announced within just the last two months," said Cooper. "Well it's about to be 11 and this may be the biggest of them all."
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