GoKawiilApple CEO Tim Cook delivers his last keynote address during the Apple WWDC at Apple Park on June 8, 2026 in Cupertino, California.
Apple CEO Tim Cook was joined by government officials, including Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, on Wednesday to open a new manufacturing facility offering free training and educational classes for businesses in Houston, Texas.
The facility is also where Apple will manufacture Mac Mini desktop computers later this year, the company said. AI servers for Apple are also assembled at a portion of the location.
"We stood up a factory, started production, and shipped the first advanced AI servers off the line, and with Mac Mini production set to begin later this year," Cook said, adding that Apple had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the facility.
President Donald Trump has for years pressed Apple to make its iPhone in the U.S. While the company has tried to appease the administration, it's also worried that Trump's proposed tariffs could snarl its business.
Apple has chosen to emphasized the things it does build in the U.S., like components, chips, and cover glass. Cook said on Thursday that Apple had sourced more than 20 billion chips from the U.S. last year and 100 million chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s facility in Arizona.
"For decades, America was the great inventor of the world's technology, and we watched that technology be built everywhere else in the world," Lutnick said at the ribbon cutting. "President Trump said, 'Look, that's got to change.'"
"We needed Apple's commitment to build here in America, because they can uniquely, maybe, lead the charge for advanced manufacturing coming to America," Lutnick continued.
The joint appearance comes in the final weeks of Cook's tenure as CEO of Apple. On Sept. 1, he'll become executive chairman, and longtime Apple hardware executive John Ternus will assume the CEO role.