NEW YORK, NY – Apple’s plans to build a North Carolina data center will result in a massive facility that could signal its next big initiative, one data-center expert says.

The company announced the billion-dollar project in June, following state tax incentives aimed at it, but has said little about its goals since. On Wednesday, an Apple spokeswoman said, “We’re looking forward to beginning construction on our new data center in Maiden, N.C., in the coming weeks,” but declined further comment.

In an interview with Cult of Mac, Rich Miller, editor of trade publication Data Center Knowledge, said that site plans indicate that Apple’s center will be some 500,000 square feet in one building, making it one of the largest of its kind. “This would qualify as a big-a– data center,” he said.

Its size hints that Apple may be considering an infrastructure-intensive cloud-computing initiative, he added. “The companies that are building the biggest data centers tend to also have the biggest cloud ambitions.”

In a previous Data Center Knowledge article, Mr. Miller noted that the Maiden center will be nearly five times the size of Apple’s Newark, Calif., facility.

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. From http://www.wsj.com. By Andrew LaVallee.
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