Apple Building Smaller, High-Security “Tactical” Data Center in Maiden, N.C.

Apple has started work on a new data center in Maiden, N.C., that is described in documents on file with local governments as a 21,000 square foot “tactical” data center, according to a report in the Hickory Daily Record.

Plans on file with Catawba County describe a $1.9 million, 11-room facility that will be adjacent to its main 500,000 square-foot data center (pictured via Google Earth) on the same property. The story says the new building will have “man traps” on opposite ends that require anyone entering to be cleared through an additional second door. It will also be surrounded by its own 8-foot chain-link fence, this despite the fact that it is located on Apple’s existing site, which is already heavily secured.

Apple has owned about 250 acres of land in the area since 2010. At least some of that land, though apparently not all of it, is being used for a huge farm of solar panels.

Another permit dated June 19 shows that Apple is building a massive hydrogen fuel cell facility that supplements the solar powered one. Reuters reported in May that solar concern SunPower and hydrogen fuel-cell start-up Bloom Energy have been tapped for both. The cost of the permit was $4.1 million.