Apple now hiring for Oregon data center as project moves closer to completion

Possible site of Apple's Prineville data center (bottom right) joins Facebook'salready active server farm (top left). | Source: iOS Maps

Apple on Monday published a notice seeking a Data Center Operations Planner to be based in Prineville, Ore. The listing, discovered by AppleInsider, comes just days after another listing for a Prineville-based position, this one for a Data Center Site Services Technician. In late March, the company posted yet another position, for a Prineville-based Data Center Chief Engineer.

The jump in Prineville hiring could indicate that Apple is close to bringing its iCloud data center that's based there online. Apple began construction of the facility in October, clearing and flattening the land where the two 338,000 square-foot buildings would eventually stand.

Land preparation and construction are thought to have cost Apple around $68 million. Including server hardware, construction costs, and labor costs, the facility is expected to cost in the hundreds of millions, and perhaps billions, of dollars.

As with Apple's other data centers, the Prineville facility will be 100 percent renewable energy-powered. Locally sourced wind, hydroelectric, and solar power will go into making the iCloud facility run.

iCloud, Apple's cloud media service for iOS and Mac OS devices, is the most popular cloud storage option in the United States, beating out competing services from Dropbox, Amazon, and Google.

The new facility is expected to take on some of the iCloud load that Apple currently routes through its servers in Maiden, North Carolina. In addition to Maiden and Prineville, Apple operates data center facilities in Reno, Nev., and Newark, Calif.