Apple submits its master plan for a large-scale data center in Oregon

Apple is moving the ball forward to build a new data center in Prineville, Oregon. Having purchased an 160-acre parcel in Prineville from Crook County for $5.6 million back in February, the company has now filed paperwork with the city officials revealing plans to build a monster 500,000 square feet data center facility akin to that in Maiden, North Carolina which powers iCloud…

The Associated Press (via MacRumors) reports that the plan for the facility, which was submitted to the city of Prineville, shows two large buildings with more than 500,000 square feet of what are described as “data halls”, the news gathering organization has it.

Apple already is building a 10,000-square-foot data center on the Prineville property it bought in February, but city officials have been expecting a bigger development.

With office space, loading docks and parking lots, the new Apple facility is expected to cover about 107 acres. The property is 160 acres.

The facility (not pictured above) will be a stone’s throw from another huge data center belonging to Facebook.

Apple also operates a $1 billion data center in Maiden, North Carolina which runs the iCloud services, also covering 500,000 square feet.

The company is planning to build another massive data center facility next to the existing Maiden data center, covering another 500,000 square feet, and recently hinted at plans to build a msyterious 21,030-square-foot tactical data center t-boned to the existing iCloud facility.

As if that wasn’t enough, Apple is also looking to build yet another $1 billion data center in Reno, Nevada.

What do you think these data centers are for, in addition to serving the nearly 400 million iOS devices and iTunes users?

Maybe Apple with these expensive data centers is aiming to become a digital broadcaster for the 21st century?