Apple Inc. has dropped a big hint about its ideas for a large-scale data centre in Central Oregon, submitting its master plan for the facility to the city of Prineville. The plan shows two buildings with more than 500,000 sq ft of what are described as "data halls," The Bend Bulletin reported. The plan doesn't say when Apple might start building.

"They really didn't say how long they are looking at," Prineville senior planner Joshua Smith said. A company spokeswoman, Kristin Huguet, referred Wednesday to the company's early statements on the development, which forecast "hiring dozens of people and bringing hundreds of construction jobs to the area" but didn't set a construction schedule. Apple already is building a 10,000-sq ft data centre on the Prineville property it bought in February, but city officials have been expecting a bigger development.

Source: SF Gate