Apple Building $1 Billion Server Farm in North Carolina?

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

Apple Insider picked up a story from The Charlotte Observer that involved a lot of stuff about tax breaks and revitalizing certain counties, but we have to confess, all we really saw was:

Apple building $1 Billion Server Farm

Yeah, that's like 1 dollar for every app download. Which made us wonder, is this building out and diversifying the location of infrastructure to help support the growth of existing "cloud-based" services like iTunes (including the App Store) and MobileMe, or does Apple have yet more on the agenda?

iTunes and MobileMe took a pounding when Apple released iPhone 2.0 last year. Turning on Push Notification for millions of users this year, never mind pie-in-the-sky future rumors of adding on-device movie and TV downloads for the iPhone will no doubt require the phatest of pipes. Could this also be just the beginning of Apple's server farm planting as well? Or is it just a much-less-exciting redundant off-site mirror for current Cupertino based systems?

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.