Days after Apple’s chief executive, the company said on Monday that it was planning to spend $ 500 billion and hire 20,000 people in the United States over the next four years and open a factory in Texas to make its powered machinery Company in artificial intelligence.
“We are swollen for the future of American innovation and we are proud to be based on long -term US investment,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive. The company made similar, lower promises during Biden’s administration and Mr Trump’s first term, although he has not yet followed some of these promises.
Mr Cook met with Mr Trump last week. After this meeting, Mr Trump said Apple will shift production in the United States: “They will build here instead because they do not want to pay the invoices,” he said in a gathering of governors.
In its investment, Apple said it would start manufacturing artificial intelligence servers in a new deployment of 250,000 square feet in Houston next year. These servers, who will be manufactured by the electronics giant Taiwanese Foxconn, will help the company expand the capacity of the Data Center in North Carolina, Oregon, Arizona and Nevada.
Apple will continue to do most of what sells – iPhones, iPads and Mac – in Asia. His footprint abroad was a point of dispute with Mr Trump since he was first elected in 2016. For years, he called on Apple to “start building cursed computers and things in this country, instead of others countries. ”
As Trump’s first administration brought invoices to China in 2019, Apple began shifting some of its constructions to Vietnam, India and other Asian countries. But it did not bring any of this production back to the United States.
Now, Apple is facing invoices for the first time on iPhones and the threat of invoices to other products manufactured abroad. The majority of iPhones are manufactured in China and US tariffs 10 % on all Chinese products came into force this month. Mr Trump also threatened mutual invoices to India, as well as contributions to imports from Canada, Mexico and other major commercial partners.
Mr Cook worked with Mr Trump in the past to help Apple avoid invoices. Trump’s administration avoided making contributions to smartphones and removing, at Apple’s request, an invoice to the Apple Watch in 2020.
Gene Munster, a partner manager at Deepwater Asset Management, said he expects Apple to be saved again by invoices due to its promise to invest $ 500 billion in the United States.
The investment represents $ 39 billion in annual spending over what Apple promised to spend on employees and suppliers in the United States in 2021, he said. It is in line with the average annual increase in Apple’s US investment to support its growth since 2017 and the 20,000 jobs that Apple said will add to the number of people who will hire four years in the United States , too.
“This is a calculated compromise for invoices,” Mr Munster said. “Trump has made it clear: You have to show me some love. The question is: How much is it worth it for Apple? And the answer is that they prefer to spend this money on the infrastructure rather than to give it to Uncle Sam.”
He added: “This is what you need to do to navigate the new world order, and Tim Cook is really good at it.”
Apple and the White House refused to comment on this article.
Apple is the last in a series of companies to submit investment commitments in the United States after Mr Trump’s election. In December, Softbank, a Japanese technology company, pledged to invest $ 100 billion in the United States and creating 100,000 jobs. A month later, Softbank, Openai and Oracle pledged to spend $ 500 billion over the next four years on computing infrastructure for artificial intelligence.
Companies have mixed files to fulfill their promises to Mr Trump. In 2018, Apple promised to build a campus in a new location as part of a $ 350 billion investment, but it has not yet done so. In the same year, Foxconn’s associate held a pioneering in Wisconsin for a high -tech $ 10 billion campus that would employ 13,000 people. Foxconn has built some buildings, but not the promised factory.
But other companies such as Toyota and Nucor, the American steel producer, followed by promises to invest billions of dollars by making plants in the olive tree now concerned with thousands of people.
An Apple spokesman said the company’s promise was later fulfilled by opening a second campus in Austin, Texas, which he announced at the end of 2018.
In 2021, Apple said it would invest $ 1 billion in North Carolina in a new campus in Raleigh. He later stopped the development of the project. Last year, he said he would develop the campus in the coming years.
Apple’s promise suggests that it is becoming increasingly serious for AI’s business, Mr Munster said. Instead of throwing tens of billions of dollars into data centers, as Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google have done, Apple has achieved partnerships with Openai, which drags some AI questions on iPhones and rented computing infrastructures by providers clouds.
To support the AI service called Apple Intelligence, the company has developed custom semiconductors for its servers, who are connected to a cloud network that has said it is more private because it is not stored or accessible, even by Apple .
Apple servers in Houston could accelerate the company’s attempt to create the AI offer. Last year, Foxconn bought an area north of Houston, next to one of its warehouses, which said it would be used for the artificial intelligence operation.
The most advanced AI servers in the world depend on a complex network of companies that have spent decades for the development of specialized tools and processes. They contain brands from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which produces the majority of cutting -edge computer chips in Taiwan and depends on the machinery of the Dutch company ASML.
TSMC also expands its production footprint in the United States. In 2020, the company said it would build a factory in Arizona. He quickly announced a second and then a third in the midst of a bush of Biden’s administration to enhance the construction of the chips. But he also pushed the launch of production in Arizona, saying that local workers had no experience in installing some sophisticated equipment.
Shortly before he left the post, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. He completed a deal to assign $ 6.6 billion to TSMC grants. The government said it was planning to give TSMC the money in installments as the company meets milestones. Apple is the largest customer of the installation.
TSMC has already started making brands for Apple in Arizona.
Apple described its announcement Monday as “greater spending commitment”. The $ 500 billion would go to production facilities, data centers and entertainment productions, the company said. Apple employs more than 150,000 people around the world.
Monday’s statement had resonator previous announcements by Apple.
Four years ago, a few months after Mr Biden’s inauguration, Apple announced a “acceleration” of its US investments, committing to spending $ 430 billion and adding 20,000 jobs over five years. In January 2018, during Mr Trump’s first term, the company stated that its “immediate contribution to the US economy” would be $ 350 billion for five years and that it was planning to create 20,000 jobs during this period.
Mr Trump thanked Apple and Mr Cook in a publication of social media on Monday. Mr Trump said the move showed that the company had “faith in what we do”.
