Apple to build Arizona sapphire plant, will create more than 2000 jobs

[RaduTyrsina]

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The State of Arizona announced that Apple is planning to build a new manufacturing facility in the city of Mesa, Arizona. The new plant is going to create around 1,300 construction-related jobs and 700 jobs for manufacturing. The new plant is part of a deal between Apple and GT Advanced Technologies Inc., one of Apple’s suppliers for sapphire glass.

GT will make the sapphire glass used in its smartphone cameras and fingerprint sensors at the Arizona plant. Apple has prepaid GT approximately $578 million for the deal which GT will reimburse over the next five years. Also, the new Arizona manufacturing facility is going to run on 100 percent renewable energy.

Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told CNET:

"We are proud to expand our domestic manufacturing initiative with a new facility in Arizona, creating more than 2,000 jobs in engineering, manufacturing, and construction.This new plant will make components for Apple products and it will run on 100 percent renewable energy from day one, as a result of the work we are doing with SRP to create green energy sources to power the facility."

Arizona's governor, Jan Brewer, seems to be happy regarding Apple’s new sapphire plant:

"Apple is indisputably one of the world's most innovative companies and I'm thrilled to welcome them to Arizona," the governor said in a statement (PDF). "Their investment in renewable energy will also be greening our power grid, and creating significant new solar and geothermal power sources for the state."

Currently, Apple is using sapphire crystal for the fingerprint sensors in its latest iPhone 5s, but part of the production is also going to be used in new Mac Pro units. And who knows, maybe Apple is indeed preparing for the launch of its much-rumored iWatch.

Source: Cnet

 

[s2mikey]

Most excellent news! Now we gotta work on getting the entire manufacturing processes moved over here to the USA.