Apple Reno (Sparks) data center, Sparks, Nevada

Apple's data center at Reno Technology Park in Sparks, Washoe County, Nevada, is expanding again: in August 2024 the company won about $62 million in tax abatements for the project. The site sits across the Truckee River from the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, on the river's path from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake.

Apple is to make nearly $992 million in capital equipment investment over 10 years and create 10 jobs at an average hourly wage of $32.51 within five years, the Northern Nevada Business Weekly reported. Apple was the first company to build at Reno Technology Park, starting in 2012 with a campus code-named Project Mills, planned at 14 buildings. By January 2016 it had filed for a second campus, Project Huckleberry, after the site's power supply neared capacity, a Washoe County planner said.

The expansion is expected to generate about $279 million in new taxes over the abatement period. Nevada's data center tax breaks can cut property tax up to 75 percent for a decade or two, and the state says Apple, Google and Vantage will still produce nearly half a billion dollars in tax revenue. The build-out has raised alarms among water experts: the Truckee River, the region's main water source, ends at Pyramid Lake, on the tribe's reservation.

"It's completely tied into us as a people," said Steven Wadsworth, chairman of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe. Other companies including Google, Tract, Switch, Novva and Vantage are also building or expanding nearby in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, and public filings show a dozen area data center projects seeking large new blocks of electricity over the next decade. Apple's expansion filings go to Washoe County planners, while the state's Governor's Office of Economic Development tracks the tax returns the project has promised.