Apple Inc. plans to assemble servers in the tech company’s large Mesa data center, according to documents made public Monday in the Federal Register.
The city of Mesa applied for foreign trade zone status for the facility at Elliot and Signal Butte roads so Apple could manufacture data servers, presumably to be used by Apple facilities globally.
“Production under (foreign trade zone) procedures could exempt Apple from customs duty payments on the foreign- status materials/components used in export production,” according to the document.
The California-based company has said little about the Mesa facility since announcing its plans in February 2015.
Apple is building a “command center” for its data networks at the facility that once housed a sapphire-glass supplier for the company, and was intended as a solar-panel factory before that.
Apple has said it is investing more than $2 billion in the facility. The company previously said 150 people would work at the facility, though it’s unclear whether the newly revealed plans to manufacture servers on the site will change that figure.
Tempe-based First Solar Inc. built the plant and planned to employ about 600 workers there but never fully occupied it. Next came GT Advanced Technologies Inc., a sapphire-glass supplier to Apple. That company filed for bankruptcy and vacated the building.
