In North Carolina, a 'Doubling Down' by Apple

North Carolina is getting a major new tenant, with promises of thousands of jobs coming with it. Apple announced Monday it will be building a new campus in the Raleigh-Durham area, set to house 3,000 employees who will work in jobs involving artificial intelligence, software engineering, and machine learning, among others, reports the Wall Street Journal. The project is expected to cost more than $1 billion—around the same cost as the Apple campus in Austin, Texas, slated to open in 2022, notes CNBC. The development is part of Apple's pledge to make a slew of investments across the country, and to create at least 20,000 jobs by 2026.

Among the other cities where Apple hopes to expand its workforce are San Diego; Culver City, Calif.; Seattle; and Boulder, Colo. "Apple is doubling down on our commitment to US innovation and manufacturing with a generational investment reaching communities across all 50 states," CEO Tim Cook says in a release. Both Cook and Apple COO Jeff Williams earned MBAs from Duke University, which is in the area. "As a North Carolina native, I'm thrilled Apple is expanding and creating new long-term job opportunities in the community I grew up in," Williams says in a statement, per CNBC. (More Apple stories.)