Apple promised a billion dollars of investment and ultimately 3,000 new jobs for North Carolina in 2021. But the company does not appear to have hired one person, nor even broken ground for its proposed campus.
Apple officially announced that it would be building a campus in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park back in 2021, but it was planned even earlier than that. As early as 2018, Apple was believed to be negotiating to build.
According to Business Journal, however, the land remains completely undeveloped. It's claimed that inspectors from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality recently found no construction activity at all.
Reportedly, there are no active permit filings and no new site plans. Plus the site's erosion approval has expired.
Starting over
In 2023 it was revealed that Apple had extensive plans to meet these targets. The campus was to be 281 acres, including at least six buildings, plus parking, streets, and a central utility plant.
Apple's original negotiations included the company getting state incentives that were tied to the number of jobs all of this would bring to the region. Through a Job Development Investment Grant, Apple was likely to see over $845 million in payroll tax relief up to 2061.
That depended on Apple meeting its hiring and investment targets, which initially meant employing at least 126 people by the end of 2023. Failing to meet that has not, as yet, endangered that particular tax relief as Apple had until 2031.
To remain eligible for other grants and incentives, however, Apple did have to meet the employment target much sooner. In November 2025, the original commitments were revised with the state granting Apple an extension. As of that decision, Apple must hire those 126 people by the end of 2027.
The state is now counting 2027 as year one of the project. By the end of year five, Apple must be employing 1,719 people. By year 10, it must be 2,700.
All of these are to be at the Research Triangle Park, which is claimed to be the largest such research park in the US. The park currently boasts over 385 companies, although its official site includes Apple in that number.
Outside of retail, Apple has employees in the state, just not at Research Triangle Park. At present, they are mostly at the Cary, NC data center which does not count towards the hiring totals for this project.
What's causing delays
One possible reason for Apple failing to build the campus is that since COVID, it has been making more deliberate choices about hiring, versus having mass layoffs by the thousands like other tech giants. In other words, it's hiring fewer people than before.
Then while most firms appear to have implemented a back to the office program following COVID, it's still likely that Apple Park is far from full.
