Apple plans to hire 20,000 workers in America and invest in artificial intelligence servers to avoid tariffs imposed by Donald Trump on products from China, Bloomberg reports.
The company plans to invest $500 billion domestically over the next four years. The funds will go toward building a new server factory in Houston, launching a supplier academy in Michigan, and expanding partnerships with existing suppliers in the U.S. The announcement comes just days after Tim Cook met with Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
$500 billion and 20,000 new employees are Apple's biggest commitment to the US, although the company has already hired 20,000 researchers and developers in the past five years. In addition, a few years ago, in 2021, Apple announced an investment of $430 billion locally over five years.
"We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing US investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future. We’ll keep working with people and companies across this country to help write an extraordinary new chapter in the history of American innovation," said Apple CEO Tim Cook.
The company said it will start manufacturing servers in Houston later this year with Foxconn to run Apple Intelligence's cloud-based computing arm, known as Private Cloud Compute. The servers will use M-series chips, which will continue to be manufactured in Taiwan for now.
The company also plans to expand its data centers in Arizona, Oregon, Iowa, Nevada, and North Carolina. In addition, TSMC's Arizona factory has reportedly already begun mass production of chips that could be used in the company's watches and tablets.
As for plans to hire 20,000 more employees, the company says most of them will be in research and development, chip engineering, and artificial intelligence. Apple will also open a manufacturing academy in Detroit to help small companies build products, similar to its existing academy that helps with app development.