Apple starts production of new Mac Pro as it expands in Austin

Apple products are, mostly, designed in California but built in China. One key product, however — the upcoming Mac Pro — will be both designed, engineered, and manufactured in the U.S.

On Wednesday, Apple announced it has begun manufacturing the Mac Pro, which is scheduled to ship in December, at its facility in Austin, Texas. And right next to that facility, the company has started the construction of a brand new campus.

The construction of the three-million-square-foot campus will cost $1 billion and should be complete at some point in 2020. Apple says it will initially host 5,000 employees with the capacity eventually increasing to 15,000.

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“Building the Mac Pro, Apple’s most powerful device ever, in Austin is both a point of pride and a testament to the enduring power of American ingenuity. With the construction of our new campus in Austin now underway, Apple is deepening our close bond with the city and the talented and diverse workforce that calls it home," Apple CEO, Tim Cook, said in a statement.

Apple's new Mac Pro will ship in December. Credit: Apple

Apple also shared some cool stats about the production of the Mac Pro. "Each Mac Pro travels a distance of 1,000 feet along the production line, with some components requiring precision placement within the width of a human hair," the company claims.

Apple's new Mac Pro is coming after a massive wait — the last version of the Mac Pro came out in 2013 and the new one was unveiled in June 2019 during Apple's WWDC conference. It features a radically different, tower-based design that replaces the previous Mac Pro's cylindrical shape. It can be configured to be an extremely powerful machine, with up to 28 cores and up to 1.5 terabytes of RAM, and is very expandable, with eight PCIe expansion slots. It starts at $5,999 but the price gets a lot higher if you opt for a more powerful configuration.

Credit: Apple

Alongside the new Pro, Apple also launched the new Pro Display XDR, a 32-inch LCD monitor with a 6K resolution and a price tag of $4,999.