The State of Arizona today announced that Apple is planning to build a new manufacturing facility in the city of Mesa, Arizona. The facility will create 700 jobs for manufacturing, and an additional 1,300 jobs for the construction and management of the new facility, In total, Apple will be bringing at least 2,000 new jobs to the United States thanks to this new facility.
In addition to the manufacturing facility, Apple will be constructing a new solar power grid in the city to power the manufacturing operations, according to Arizona’s announcement:
Neither the State government nor Apple have announced the purpose of the facility, but it will likely have to do with expanding the technology’s company’s new initiative to bring manufacturing back to the United States. For the past several years, Apple has produced its hardware products in Asia-based manufacturing facilities, but beginning this fall, the computer maker will build new Mac Pro models in Texas. Perhaps this new facility in Arizona will assist the Texas operations in building Mac Pros and build other new versions of Apple devices.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook previously noted that Mac Pro production, assembly, and parts-sourcing would involve the state of Arizona. Apple also notes on its website that Mac Pro manufacturing goes beyond Texas:
It appears that the facility will be used to manufacture sapphire crystal, based on an announcement from an Apple component supplier.
Apple uses this material to create the camera lenses in recent iPhone models, for example. Additionally, it is used to protect the Touch ID fingerprint scanner in the iPhone 5s.
Last month, we reported that Apple is opening up a large facility in Pennsylvania to manage East Coast AppleCare repairs. This facility will also likely create hundreds of new jobs in the United States.
Apple has commented on today’s announcement:
