By Jordan Meadows
Staff Writer
Apple’s long-anticipated Research Triangle Park (RTP) campus has entered another extended holding pattern as North Carolina formally approved the company’s request to push back the hiring and investment milestones tied to its incentive package.
The NC Economic Investment Committee voted to grant Apple a four-year extension on the timelines originally established in 2021, effectively restarting an agreement that could ultimately deliver up to $845 million in tax benefits if the company meets its obligations. Apple had confirmed in 2023 that it had paused construction and sought to renegotiate its deal with the state, noting that although it had added around 600 Raleigh-area employees since 2021, it needed significantly more time before launching major development activities.
Under the original terms, Apple committed to invest $1 billion in North Carolina over a decade—$552 million for a new corporate campus in RTP and $448 million to expand its Catawba County data center—while creating at least 3,000 high-paying jobs averaging $187,001 annually, a dramatic contrast to Wake County’s $63,966 average wage.
Despite securing one of the state’s rare “transformative” Job Investment Grants and purchasing 281 acres in RTP, Apple has yet to begin construction on the new campus. Development plans filed in 2023 outlined an ambitious build-out of three office buildings, supporting structures, and a parking facility totaling roughly 900,000 square feet, later followed by an additional filing describing six buildings, 700,000 square feet of office space, 190,000 square feet of accessory space, and nearly 3,000 parking spots across 41 acres.
In the meantime, Apple is operating out of more than 200,000 square feet of leased office space in Cary as a temporary base for its growing regional workforce. The company says the RTP site will serve as a center for machine learning, artificial intelligence, software engineering, and related fields, complementing its existing 1,100-employee presence across the state.
"We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we're proud to build on our long-standing US investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country's future," said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a statement from the company.
The newly approved extension delays Apple’s hiring obligations until the end of 2027, by which time the company must add 126 positions to remain eligible for incentives, ramping up to 1,719 jobs by the fifth year of the grant and 2,700 by year ten. While the company has not offered a precise construction timeline, observers note that the rapid, unpredictable rise of AI—and the challenge of forecasting its infrastructure demands—has likely informed Apple’s decision to delay breaking ground.
Even amid the slowdown in RTP, Apple’s broader North Carolina footprint continues to expand. In February 2025, the company announced that its Charlotte-area data center is part of a sweeping new $500 billion investment plan across the United States. This national initiative includes increased data center capacity not only in North Carolina but also in Iowa, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada, alongside additional spending on corporate facilities and Apple TV+ content production in those states.
The Greater Raleigh Chamber has issued a statement that says they're "excited that Apple has already made significant hires locally, and that they will be continuing these investments both here and across the country."
Apple’s marquee RTP project remains on pause, but the company’s ongoing statewide investments preserve the long-term vision of a major East Coast engineering hub—albeit on a delayed and uncertain timeline.
