Apple to hire 20,000 new workers and spend $500bn in US 

Firm which employees 6,000 people in Cork plans AI focus in US amid Trump tariff threat

Apple said that it will hire 20,000 new workers and produce AI servers in the US. Apple ceo Tim Cook met with US President Donald Trump earlier this month. (Picture: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Apple said that it will hire 20,000 new workers and produce AI servers in the US, as it seeks relief from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on goods imported from China.

The company, which employees 6,000 people in Cork city, said on Monday that it plans to spend $500bn (€477bn) in the over the next four years, which will include work on a new server manufacturing facility in Houston, a supplier academy in Michigan, and additional spending with its existing US suppliers. The disclosure comes days after Trump and Apple chief executive Tim Cook met in the Oval Office.

“He’s investing hundreds of billions of dollars,” Mr Trump said after the meeting last week. He implied that the iPhone maker is investing locally because it does not want to pay tariffs. Trump has threatened an additional 10% tax on items imported from China, where Apple builds the vast majority of iPhones and other products. But he has traded investment in the US for relief in the past.

The $500bn investment and 20,000 new jobs over the next four years mark Apple’s biggest US commitment to date. Apple said it hired 20,000 research and development workers over the last five years and said in 2021 it would invest $430bn locally over the next half-decade.

Apple’s shares slid as much as 1.5% in pre-market US trading.

“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,” Mr Cook said in a statement. “We’ll keep working with people and companies across this country to help write an extraordinary new chapter in the history of American innovation.”

 During his first administration, Mr Cook was able to successfully sway Trump into sparing the iPhone from tariffs by arguing that the tax would serve to benefit competitors like South Korea-based Samsung. Apple also made multiple announcements during Mr Trump’s first term about US investments and credited Mr Trump with Mac Pro manufacturing in Texas despite its manufacturing computers there since 2013.

In exchange, Apple was able to retain its high profit margins and avoid significantly raising product prices during Mr Trump’s first presidency. With Mr Trump again in office with a similar plan to push US companies to build goods in the US to avoid taxes on foreign imports, Apple is taking a similar tact with a strategic investment announcement that will meet Trump’s desires.

In January, Mr Cook was one of several US technology company CEOs to attend the Trump inauguration in Washington. He also met with Mr Trump at the president’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, after his election victory in November. Apple didn’t say whether the new investments were already underway before Mr Trump’s win.

Apple said that it, together with Foxconn Technology Group, will later this year begin producing the servers that power the cloud component of Apple Intelligence — a system called Private Cloud Compute — in Houston. That marks a relocation, at least for some production, from overseas. Next year, it says a 250,000-square-foot facility for such manufacturing will open in the city.

The Private Cloud Compute servers use advanced M-series chips already found in the company’s Mac computers. Those chips themselves, however, continue to be produced in Taiwan.

Apple will also expand data centre capacity in Arizona, Oregon, Iowa, Nevada, and North Carolina, all states with existing Apple capacity. The company confirmed that mass production of chips started at a Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. facility in Arizona last month. That plant is building chips for some Apple watches and iPads.

The 20,000 additional jobs, Apple said, will focus on research and development, silicon engineering and AI. The company is opening up what it calls a manufacturing academy in Detroit, where it will help smaller companies with manufacturing. It already operates an academy for app developers in the city. It’s also doubling its manufacturing fund in the US to $10bn.

Bloomberg