Manufacturing
Apple Plans Houston Plant to Produce AI Servers
Apple says it sources silicon wafers from 24 U.S. plants, such as Texas Instruments' fab in Lehi, Utah.
Photo courtesy Apple
Apple Inc. says it plans to produce servers at a new manufacturing plant in Texas. The company announced the project as part of more than $500 billion it says it will spend in the U.S. over the next four years on a wide swath of items ranging from data centers to Apple TV+ productions.
The 250,000-sq-ft facility in Houston will manufacture servers for Apple’s Apple Intelligence and Private Cloud Compute AI services. The facility is scheduled to open next year, according to Apple.
“We’re thrilled to expand our support for American manufacturing,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple did not identify the manufacturer it is working with and company representatives did not immediately respond to inquiries, but Reuters reported that Apple’s manufacturer is Foxconn, which also assembles iPhones. In November, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. disclosed that its subsidiary, Foxconn Assembly LLC, had obtained a 118-acre site in Houston for $33 million. Hon Hai did not share the reason for the purchase.
In addition to the server plant, Apple said it is doubling its “Advanced Manufacturing Fund” from $5 billion to $10 billion. That includes a commitment to purchase material from a TSMC fabrication plant in Arizona. Apple is the fab’s largest customer, and says that TSMC began mass production of its chips in January. TSMC finalized an agreement with the U.S. Dept. of Commerce in November to receive up to $6.6 billion in direct funding through the CHIPS and Science Act for its $65-billion project to cons three fabs at the site outside Phoenix. The second fab is scheduled to begin production in 2028, and the third by the end of the decade, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Apple says it sources silicon from 24 U.S. plants.
Apple also said it plans to expand its data center capacity in North Carolina, Oregon, Arizona and Nevada.
This is not Apple’s first large spending announcement, and it was not immediately clear how much of the $500 billion was previously unannounced. But the move comes as companies face new tariffs from the Trump administration when importing goods from China, where Apple does much of its manufacturing.
