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Apple Officially Selects North Carolina for New $1 Billion Data Center

Nc

I am really happy Apple is locating here in NC. I live about 20 minutes from the rumored county. I would love to work there some day.

We have lost many jobs (textiles, furniture, Wachovia, BofA, tobacco)... we really need it.

Google just opened a new data center in Lanore... which isn't too far away either..

very cool!
 
It never ceases to amaze me how people comment without reading the supporting links first.

The facility is expected to employ at least 50 full-time employees. The legislation requires that the average wage exceed the wage standard of the county in which it’s located. A data center such as this will typically contract locally for services such as server maintenance and repair, building and HVAC maintenance, landscaping and security – expenditures that could range from $5 million to $6 million annually in the region and create up to 250 jobs. The North Carolina Department of Commerce projects that a data center investment of $1 billion would create more than 3,000 jobs in the regional economy, including hundreds of jobs related to construction and others created as a result of economic growth.
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bergmef said:
The government requiring a salary level. They already do with minimum wage. Can they demand something higher?
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When the company is seeking tax breaks, sure. The govt. gives a lot and the company gives a little.
 
Peace said:
Well it is a data center. Putting a data center in a different country wouldn't help the bandwidth in the US much.;)
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True enough, but they could have built the data center just over the border into Canada or Mexico. I'm just glad they found it cost effective to go where they did.
 
Silicon (River) Valley?

The Apple Data Center will not be far from the Google server farm in NC. They are both, very roughly, in the Catawba River Valley. So perhaps we should coin the phrase "Silicon River Valley" or "Silicon River". IBM also has facilities in Charlotte as do other tech companies.
 
It should be clarified that it is not a 'billion dollar data center,' thats their investment over the course of 9 years. The initial cost of the building is only a fraction of what it takes to maintain it.
 
bigcat318 said:
It should be clarified that it is not a 'billion dollar data center,' thats their investment over the course of 9 years. The initial cost of the building is only a fraction of what it takes to maintain it.
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That's a good point. It's a bit like us all claiming we have a million dollar income, it just happens to be earned cumulatively over a lot of years! :D
 
I think its fare for Apple to ask for a tax break. After all, the money will probably just go on over to GM which really needs to just close it's doors.

So 1 billion down, 28 more to go. Now they need to buy EA, and Adobe.
 
marco114 said:
I am really happy Apple is locating here in NC. I live about 20 minutes from the rumored county. I would love to work there some day.

We have lost many jobs (textiles, furniture, Wachovia, BofA, tobacco)... we really need it.

Google just opened a new data center in Lanore... which isn't too far away either..

very cool!
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It is very cool! Good luck - it would be pretty amazing to work at a place like that.

ozyr said:
3rd that....

Nice to see a company keeping some jobs here! :cool:
(This coming from someone who knows the sting of off-shoring)
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4th that!
 
Brycew said:
I think its fare for Apple to ask for a tax break. After all, the money will probably just go on over to GM which really needs to just close it's doors.
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Right, because the NC state government is funding the GM bailout. :rolleyes:
 
jessica. said:
If by asking if Apple has a data center in the midwest already you're implying that NC is the midwest I think you need to check out a map. ;)

I'm pretty stoked about this because it does create some jobs ... the unemployment rate here is rising and rising ...
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I don't even have a witty comment. Obviously I know where North Carolina is. I was asking because logical Data Center choices servicing North America are usually in Dallas or Chicago because its smack dab in the middle.
 
Iceland?

I still reckon Iceland or some other northerly region with lots of cold air and geothermal hotness would be an excellent place to build datacentres - get the power from the Earth and you have lots of cold air for cooling the hardware, saves on air con and you'd get your power for negligable costs and without the uncertain supply of other renewables.

Plus I think Iceland could do with some new industry and it's slap bang in between Europe and the US.

Watcha think? :D
I think :cool:
 
donbadman said:
I still reckon Iceland or some other northerly region with lots of cold air and geothermal hotness would be an excellent place to build datacentres - get the power from the Earth and you have lots of cold air for cooling the hardware, saves on air con and you'd get your power for negligable costs and without the uncertain supply of other renewables.

Plus I think Iceland could do with some new industry and it's slap bang in between Europe and the US.

Watcha think? :D
I think :cool:
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I'm certainly no expert on Iceland, but I'd imagine the air is pretty damp there. That would require air conditioning.
 
donbadman said:
I still reckon Iceland or some other northerly region with lots of cold air and geothermal hotness would be an excellent place to build datacentres - get the power from the Earth and you have lots of cold air for cooling the hardware, saves on air con and you'd get your power for negligable costs and without the uncertain supply of other renewables.
I think :cool:
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While your point about the cooler climate is correct, a lot more goes in to choosing a location than the weather. Certain areas are very popular for data centers. Not far from here I could stand on the roof of one and hit another with a rock. I've been in both and they are two different companies that built them. As mentioned earlier certain areas in texas are also popular choices.
 
inkswamp said:
I'm certainly no expert on Iceland, but I'd imagine the air is pretty damp there. That would require air conditioning.
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Nope just use some very water retaining minerals for example on the air intakes... There's loads of design solutions to any potential problems and I know a lot of architects and engineers would have a party designing it...

It can be done, makes perfect sense and would be uber cool, so that's why it won't happen... :D
 
Any air entering the data floor would be conditioned no matter where the location. Its all going to pass through a CRAH or CRAC unit for cooling.
 
bigcat318 said:
While your point about the cooler climate is correct, a lot more goes in to choosing a location than the weather. Certain areas are very popular for data centers. Not far from here I could stand on the roof of one and hit another with a rock. I've been in both and they are two different companies that built them. As mentioned earlier certain areas in texas are also popular choices.
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Yep I know a lot more goes into these decisions than the weather, first up is political which immediately puts massive constraints on the functionality, design and practical aspects.

I just put it out there cause it makes a lot of sense to me, I know people in NC won't agree but I'd still be arguing this case if it was just up the road.
 
bigcat318 said:
Any air entering the data floor would be conditioned no matter where the location. Its all going to pass through a CRAH or CRAC unit for cooling.
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Yep but the air con in this case would be geothermal powered, where is the power coming from in NC? Oil/Gas/Nuke/Coal?
 
All data centers require air conditioning to keep units running cool we have a fairly small data center for my work that consists of about 60 servers and we have to have 2 air conditioners in the room.
 
donbadman said:
Yep I know a lot more goes into these decisions than the weather, first up is political which immediately puts massive constraints on the functionality, design and practical aspects.

I just put it out there cause it makes a lot of sense to me, I know people in NC won't agree but I'd still be arguing this case if it was just up the road.
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I have actually never heard of any political issues in the choosing of location for a data center that I have worked on. I was more referring to access and security, and utilities. Its common for data centers to be masked as office buildings with fake windows to not draw attention. They are also rarely on main roads but almost always near a highway. They are near highways because of the second aspect, utilities. When designing the data center usually want to be able to tap in to two seperate power grids in case one substation goes down. Power lines tend to follow highways. Downtime is a loss of money. For some companies 1 minute of downtime is millions of dollars.
 
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