Apple Adding 20K US Jobs in ‘Largest-Ever Spend Commitment’

Apple plans to invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. in the next four years.

Calling it its “largest-ever spend commitment,” the tech giant on Monday (Feb. 24) announced that this plan will involve hiring 20,000 workers, and opening a manufacturing facility in Houston to make servers to support Apple Intelligence, the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) system.

“Previously manufactured outside the U.S., the servers that will soon be assembled in Houston play a key role in powering Apple Intelligence, and are the foundation of Private Cloud Compute, which combines powerful AI processing with the most advanced security architecture ever deployed at scale for AI cloud computing,” the company said.

The company says it also plans to keep expanding data center capacity in North Carolina, Iowa, Oregon, Arizona and Nevada, while opening the “Apple Manufacturing Academy” in Detroit to help companies pivot to advanced manufacturing.

“Apple engineers, along with experts from top universities such as Michigan State, will consult with small- and medium-sized businesses on implementing AI and smart manufacturing techniques,” the announcement said, along with free in-person and online courses in things like project management and “manufacturing process optimization.”

“We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook.

The announcement follows a meeting last week between Cook and President Donald Trump, who later said the CEO had pledged to invest hundreds of millions in the U.S. and to focus on domestic manufacturing.

“They don’t want to be in the tariffs,” the president said, referring to his administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods.

Also last week, Apple introduced its lower-cost smartphone, the iPhone 16e, with a price that starts at $599. The phone replaces the iPhone SE, which had traditionally been the company’s lower-cost offering.

Days later, Apple announced that the Apple Intelligence suite would arrive on another platform — Vision Pro, the company’s mixed-reality headset — in April.

The company said Apple Intelligence will be available in beta in a software update, visionOS 2.4, with support for U.S. English, with additional features and support for other languages expected to be added throughout the year.