What’s interesting about that promise is that it implies Apple intends to make a very large number of these servers and it means several things: that Apple will extend the services it offers via Private Cloud Compute; it intends wide international deployment of these servers; and (speculatively) it will offer these private cloud services as a business in its own right. An iOS developer might want to use space in the private cloud to provide AI services, for example.
None of these educated guesses could turn out correct, but a factory with thousands of employees is going to be producing something in very significant quantities. Apple will also expand data center capacity in North Carolina, Iowa, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada.
Advanced Manufacturing Fund
Apple’s Advanced Manufacturing Fund has made some key investments in support of third-party innovation as it is applied to Apple products in the past — think about Corning Glass, for example. The latest promise includes a massive $10 billion investment in skills development at Apple’s planned academy in Detroit, MI and billions in support of TSMC’s Fab 21 plant in Arizona.
This story originally appeared on Computerworld
