Apple plans to build a data center in Waukee, joining Google, Facebook and Microsoft in building facilities in Iowa, reports The Des Moines Register. The project became public after state officials published an agenda for a specially called meeting of the Iowa Economic Development Authority board.
Using the code name Project Morgan, the council agenda shows plans for a development agreement with Apple, the sale of city-owned property to Bravo Real Estate, and rezoning of properties from agricultural use to light industrial. The report also says that Iowa is a good fit for tech companies.
Apple is also working on a new data center in Denmark. Data centers and all of the servers packed in them generate a huge amount of heat, and Apple has announced that it will capture the waste heat from the new facility and direct it to a district heating system used to warm local homes.
What’s more, Apple is looking to beef up its services backend with major expansions at existing data centers in Arizona and Nevada, including a $1 billion investment that doubles its commitment to a Reno Technology Park facility. Construction of a previously planned “phase 2” addition to Apple’s Mesa, Arizona, data center is underway. And the tech giant is expected to further increase the size of its Arizona data center in the near future as part of a “phase 3” expansion.
Apple is repurposing GT Advanced’s former sapphire plant in Mesa to produce cabinets for its other data centers. The nature of the product is not for end users but for other global data centers what will be supported from the site.
Additionally, Apple may purchase half of a city block in downtown Reno, Nevada for a 30,000 square-foot facility. This would be the tech giant’s second major project in the city. In early 2016, Apple filed permit with Washoe County to build a new cluster of facilities adjacent to its original “Project Mills” site in Reno, Nevada, that’s dubbed “Project Huckleberry.” It apparently involves the construction of a new data center. Initial construction for the project will involve a new full shell, several data center clusters as well as a support building.
