Apple will expand Munich into its European Center for Chip Design, hire hundreds of new employees and build a new, state-of-the-art location with a focus on connectivity and wireless technologies. Munich is already Apple’s largest development center in Europe. The almost 1,500 engineers from 40 countries work in various areas, including power management design, application processors and wireless technologies. The work done there work contributes to Apple’s self-designed chip, which provides industry-leading performance, powerful features, and incredible efficiency. The expansion at the Munich location, together with additional investments in research and development, will amount to more than one billion euros in the next three years alone.
“I couldn’t be more excited about what our engineering teams in Munich will discover – from exploring new possibilities in 5G technology to a new generation of technologies that will enable even more performance, speed and connectivity,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “Munich has been a home for Apple for four decades and we are grateful to the city and Germany for what has been achieved together and look forward to the path that lies ahead.”
Expansion of Apple’s engineering teams in Munich
This extension is the latest step in Apple’s long-standing effort to build a world-class engineering team in Munich and all over Germany.
In 2015, Apple opened its Bavarian Design Center, which has now grown to more than 350 engineers. The initial focus of the teams was on the design of power management units and they were instrumental in Apple’s work on several Power Management Units chips. The teams have developed custom-made chips that deliver higher performance and better efficiency for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac with M1 chip. Over the past decade, Apple innovations in energy efficiency have reduced the average energy consumption of the products by more than 70 percent.
In 2019, the company added the chip development sites in Nabern near Kirchheim unter Teck. Today, about half of Apple’s global power management design team is in Germany. Apple also has teams in Munich that are working on application processor SoCs and analog and mixed signal solutions for the iPhone.
A new building for Europe’s largest engineering team for mobile technologies
The new location will be home to Apple’s growing cellular team and Europe’s largest development site for mobile wireless semiconductors and software. The team is working on the development of 5G and future technologies, and it creates innovations for all aspects of mobile life through the smooth integration of hardware and software engineering. The teams are also working on the development, integration and optimization of wireless modems for Apple products. The Apple location in Linz, Austria, is driving new radio technologies and designs forward.
The new, 30,000 square meter location is located on Karlstraße in downtown Munich. The architecture and green areas are characterized by local materials and reflect Munich as a city that combines tradition, humanity and innovation. Apple plans to move into the new building at the end of 2022. It will have a LEED certification in gold from day one. Like all Apple offices worldwide, it is operated entirely with 100 percent renewable energy. Throughout Germany, Apple now employs over 4,000 team members in various areas such as retail, engineering, sales, and administration.
A contribution to the industrial and technological success of Germany
Over the past five years, Apple has spent more than 15 billion euros on its work with more than 700 companies of all sizes in Germany. These include chip manufacturer Infineon, battery manufacturer Varta and owner-managed chemical company DELO, which supplies adhesive for Face ID technology in Apple’s latest products, including the iPhone 12 Pro.
DELO is located one hour away from Munich and is also working with Apple’s environmental team in the region to reduce the use of harmful chemicals and the carbon footprint. Apple has also joined its commitment to be CO2-neutral throughout the company, in the production supply chain and in the product life cycle by 2030.
In 2015, Apple launched the Supplier Clean Energy Program. Suppliers all over Germany are working on new solutions to operate their Apple production with 100 percent renewable energy. Companies such as Henkel, tesa SE and Varta have also joined. When all projects of Apple’s suppliers have been completed, these commitments avoid more than 14.3 million tons of CO2e annually – equivalent to an annual carbon dioxide emission of more than 3 million cars.
Apple in the Munich region
Apple has been based in Munich since 1981, when the company started with 10 employees. Today, Apple team members work in seven branches and two of the 15 German Apple stores are located in Munich.
As part of the company’s commitment to local communities, Apple employees in Munich support several local NGOs and charities. Since the pandemic poses unprecedented challenges to the region, Apple employees increased their commitment to the Munich community. As part of the Apple Giving Program, Apple provides an additional donation to the same organization for every hour in which an employee volunteers and for every euro an employee donates. Since the program was founded in 2011, Apple employees have raised a total of almost $600 million in donations and volunteered more than 1.6 million hours for more than 34,000 organizations. This also includes the support of the Munich mentoring initiative “Rock your Life” and the Munich Tafel, which supplies more than 20,000 people with food every week and distributes it in the city.
MacDailyNews Note: In September 2019, Apple CEO Tim Cook has traveled to Germany to visit local Apple employees and App Store developers, and he even took a moment to celebrate the annual Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich (see below). Likely he was also discussing the European Center for Chip Design project.
Prost from Oktoberfest! It’s great to be in Munich! 🍺🎡🥨 pic.twitter.com/vu7cciKPj9
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) September 29, 2019
Perhaps it is not a coincidence they are setting is up in Munich (where BMW is headquartered)???
I would hope they want to diversify out of china more and more. Tim Cook is a failure at business 101, diversification. All his production eggs were in one hostile communist basket.
He is still a failure though. He needs to bring at least SOME production back to the US. 1%, 2%, 5%, 10%, SOMETHING.
Again, it’s business 101. You need to diversify critical things like this so if something goes wrong (pandemic anyone) you can ramp up other areas, and at least youre not ramping up from scratch.
I think it’s more because Infineon is located there
Bob Marley & The Wailers!
https://www.drivespark.com/off-beat/10-important-bmw-facts-even-bob-marley-had-a-say-011354.html
Any guesses as to how Bob Marley and BMW are connected?
Read more at: https://www.drivespark.com/off-beat/10-important-bmw-facts-even-bob-marley-had-a-say/articlecontent-pf19463-011354.html
Steve Loved BMW….
https://www.networkworld.com/article/2228891/steve-jobs-and-his-bmw-motorcycle-circa-1982.html
Apple/BMV partnership is inevitable.
https://themotormasters.com/steve-jobs-bmw-sells-for-329500/
Jobs is quoted in the article expressing hope that Apple becomes the “Volkswagen of the Industry”. Talk about an understatement.
The article relays a quote from one of Jobs’ friends who states, “In plaid shirt and jeans, [Jobs] still prefers to drive his motorcycle to my place, sit around and drink wine, and talk about what we’re going to do when we grow up.”
iCancel All Snowflakes & Their Collective iGnorance. GROW UP!
iCan’t STAND Snowflakes Sam iAm. .!..
Steve’s daily driver for many many years was a Mercedes SL.
Often parked in handicapped spots.
Apple using its money to do something like this, I can completely understand. Spending tens of billions of dollars on buybacks every quarter, not so much. With the design center, there will be plenty of employees collecting salaries and specialized components likely coming from such a center. I now see that Apple has been spending money on many other businesses which I was unaware of. I had wondered why Apple wasn’t more into battery research when such a large percentage of its products rely on batteries.
Apple spends tons if money on battery research.
But it’s not primarily for the end user. Apple priorities are: cheap, small, fast charge, predictable limited lifetime.
Apple has zero interest in making a battery last multiple days on a single charge and absolutely never last more than a few years before performance noticeably degrades. Obviously.