The iCloud Data Center in North Carolina. Apple’s mysterious offices in Austin and Sacramento. Apple’s international headquarters around the world. Take a look inside dozens of Apple facilities that the tech company doesn’t want you to see.
We’ve seen inside Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. We’ve taken a tour of some of the most incredible Apple Stores, including back-of-house areas that are off-limits to the public. Today Apple Gazette is going to guide you on a trip around the world to all of Apple’s other offices and facilities, including some top-secret locations. The following pictures have been compiled from all over the Internet, and are the property of their respective owners (credits are listed beneath each photo).
iCloud Data Center – Maiden, NC
The Apple Data Center in my home state of North Carolina is one of the most highly-secured facilities Apple owns. This sprawling, state-of-the-art server farm is strictly off limits to the public, and as such, photos of it are hard to come by. We’ll start with the handful of publicity photos Apple itself has released.
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
But what about the people who work there, or visit there on business? How many people work there, anyway? Have any locals managed to get inside?
Well, not many. But I turned up a few. And as for how many people work there, it’s anybody’s guess. But this next photo shows that it’s probably quite a lot.
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
According to numerous reports, Apple is in various stages of construction on new Data Centers in Newark CA, Prineville OR, Reno NV, Santa Clara CA, and Hong Kong.
Sacramento Operations Center – Elk Grove, CA
Cupertino is not the only place in California where Apple has offices. There’s also a little-known but large Operations Center north of the Bay Area. Its official name indicates it’s in Sacramento, but it’s actually in a Sacramento suburb called Elk Grove. The Sacramento Operations Center was once a manufacturing plant where the “Bondi Blue” iMac G1 was first built, but manufacturing was eventually outsourced overseas (aka, Foxconn) in 2004. Today the facility is used as a warehouse, distribution center, developer support, and support call center.
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
Austin Operations Center – Austin, TX
Similar to the Sacramento facility, this Operations Center has lots of support staff that augments the Cupertino office. One thing it has that the Sacramento office doesn’t is an R&D (research and development) department. It’s unknown exactly what products or services are worked on at Apple Austin. The city of Austin recently approved plans for additional buildings on this campus that will eventually equal one million square feet.
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
Apple Europe HQ – Cork, Ireland
Apple’s base of operations for all of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East is located in Cork, Ireland. “Apple Europe Limited,” as it’s formally called, appears to be, based on my limited knowledge, charged with overseeing Apple’s interests overseas, including individual international offices, retail stores, corporate partners, etc. “Apple Sales International” and “Apple Distribution International” are both based here.
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
[Image credit]
International Offices
Presented in gallery form, here’s a collection of images I turned up showing off the small office spaces used by Apple internationally. They come in all sizes; most are little more than a collection of rented rooms in a larger office building, though at least one (Singapore) boasts a very large building all its own.
I assumed this meant that “Apple Asia Limited,” aka Apple’s base of operations for all of Asia, is located in Singapore. But I found conflicting reports suggesting that Apple Asia is located either in Singapore or Hong Kong. Can any of our readers clear this up?
In addition to the offices depicted above, I also found evidence of Apple corporate offices in Austria (Österreich), Bulgaria, Denmark (Copenhagen), Italy (Milano), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Poland (Warsaw), South Korea (Seoul), Taiwan (Taipei), and Turkey. But thus far, I’ve been unable to turn up any photos of these offices. A Google Maps search of the Taiwan office’s street address didn’t reveal Apple’s office building, but there is a large Foxconn office building there. Most of the international offices are put in place preceding the opening of a new Apple retail store(s) in that country, so many of the countries I just listed could be getting their own Apple Store in the near future. Though there are other reasons for Apple to have corporate offices in a given country, such as partner relations.
Along with all these international offices, Apple is also planning to build and open a brand new R&D Center in Shanghai sometime in the next few years.
2 thoughts on “A Peek at Apple’s Other Facilities”
Just drove by the Apple offices in Austin. As you mentioned, they’re adding on – I saw the construction going strong this morning. It’s Saturday (2/16), so they must be in a hurry to get this done.
They are in a hurry because those offices because they where supposed to be done by Jan 1 and some employees had already moved in. Apple Austin handles AppleCare and Finance as their two largest functions from what I have seen, while supporting some of the outside sales functions to education and other markets. They have been renting buildings in the adjecent office park; so the new buildings are an effort to get everyone ‘on-campus’. The local newspaper stated that the new building was going to put Apple over a million square feet of office space.
There are now three Cafe Macs on campus, but since visitors are permitted in Cafe Macs and they are visible from outside, no real huge secret.
I was a contractor there. They like their secrets, but I don’t think I’ve revealed anything which is not common knowledge. My role, like many in Austin, did not subject me to any ‘black protest’; although we all knew they existed- even in Austin.
One of largest buildings was full of finance people, IS&T took the majority of of the other buildings, and AppleCare Support and call center was another large group. Oracle was rumored to own two of the buildings which at Apple had ‘expanded’ to, prior to the completion of the new buildings.