APPLE ANNOUNCES 1ST EAST COAST CAMPUS IN NORTH CAROLINA

Apple is expanding spending in the U.S. and announced plans to build its first East Coast campus, in North Carolina.

The iPhone maker is boosting U.S. spending to $430 billion over the next five years and doubling its hiring plans by 20,000 jobs. It had said it would spend $350 billion in January 2018, just after Congress approved a big tax overhaul that cut corporate taxes.

Apple says it is stepping up investment as the U.S. begins rebuilding from the COVID-19 pandemic. The company for years has emphasized its role in the U.S. economy to help counter criticism about its reliance on overseas factories, often taking advantage of local tax breaks.

Apple will invest $1 billion in North Carolina and the campus, in the Raleigh-Durham area’s Research Triangle Park, is expected to bring at least 3,000 new jobs to the state in machine learning, artificial intelligence, software engineering and other fields. The workers will have an average annual salary of about $185,000.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said that once Apple creates the jobs, the tech giant will be eligible for incentives he considers “transformational.”