Apple Plans 'High-Tech Manufacturing' of Data-Center Gear in Arizona (businessinsider.com)

An anonymous reader shares a Business Insider report: Apple is seeking permission to conduct "high-tech manufacturing" and to build data-center server gear in a Mesa, Arizona, facility, according to a notice published Monday by the US federal government. A notification published in the Federal Register on Monday said Apple was looking for approval from the Foreign-Trade Zones Board to produce "finished products" in a special zone that exempts it from customs duty payments. "Apple Inc has repurposed the site as a global data command center that will conduct high-tech manufacturing of finished data center cabinets for other data centers," according to a document filed by Mesa on behalf of Apple in June and made public Monday. [...] The Arizona effort would mark a rare instance of a US tech company manufacturing and assembling a finished product domestically, where labor costs are higher. Apple's effort appears limited to equipment for its internal operations, however, rather than for a mass-market consumer product.

Comments

Are they just avoiding import tariffs?

[stabiesoft]

I quickly scanned the article. My impression was they will screw them together in mesa, and all the pieces will be imported. By "finishing" the product in mesa they avoid customs on all the pieces. Before, they actually screwed them together in NC, Oregon, etc, the places they were used, and probably had to pay import taxes on the components. So net, no new US jobs, probably fewer since centralizing the finishing will optimize the process.

Re:Are they just avoiding import tariffs?

[Anonymous Coward]

This. I'm not sure why this is being published as a puff piece on Apple when they're really pulling a scheme that auto manufacturers perfected decades ago.

High-tech manufacturing = Robots

[Camel Pilot]

"The Arizona effort would mark a rare instance of a US tech company manufacturing and assembling a finished product domestically, where labor costs are higher"

Well that is because of this key phrase...

"high-tech manufacturing"

Meaning there will be very little labor and lot of robots.

Re:Server Racks

[geekmux]

"conduct high-tech manufacturing of finished data center cabinets for other data centers"

Stores forty-two 1u servers in a stylish brushed aluminum housing. Introducing the New Apple iRack Pro.

Apple wanting to put their artistic flair inside a data center is akin to an artist painting the inside of a toilet bowl.

The only time anyone is going to see it is when things get really shitty.

Re:Watch Trump's Twitter feed

[NatasRevol]

If mentioning Trump is now 'godwinning' a thread, comments worldwide may as well be shut down now.