Apple's North Carolina iCloud Data Center Finally Appears On Google Maps (PICTURE)

Just after Apple revealed plans to announce its web-based storage service, iCloud, the company also lifted the blinds on the 500,000 square foot server farm in Maiden, North Carolina, where Apple is believed to have housed the base of iCloud operations.

As Fortune explains, the center was mysteriously absent from Google Maps until recently:

If you asked Google Earth or Google Maps to show you the intersection of U.S. Route 321 and Startown Road -- where the data center is located -- the current satellite imagery stopped a few yards short of the construction site. West of Startown Road, there was, as recently as two weeks ago, nothing but woods and farmland and a bit of driveway that ended abruptly in the middle of a field.

However, since teasing its plans for iCloud, Apple has apparently had a word with Google, and Google Maps users can now search for and clearly view the large white building.

Check out the image (below), and visit the location for yourself by entering (35.588364, -81.26235) into the Google Maps search bar.

LOOK:

Comments

[kkrimmer]

01:48 PM on 06/04/2011

ha ha ... made you look.

[Sunzuki]

04:14 AM on 06/03/2011

Wow........an article about the top of a building.

[bryanzth]

07:28 PM on 06/02/2011

Hahaha, it kinda beamed into existence all of a sudden! AND I bet that workers on the plant were kept out of who the owner was or they signed a NDA. Amazing!

Lovely to look at, delightful to learn about, but I still won't be using iCloud. I keep hard copies of my media.

I use a variety of platforms, but don't like either the Amazon or the Apple site-stored media. Nope, I'll keep it on my site. ;0)

BZ.

[redmaple]

02:56 PM on 06/02/2011

Some may call it magical, beautiful, revolutionary.

[redmaple]

02:54 PM on 06/02/2011

Make possible by coal.

[WadeLaycook]

03:33 AM on 06/02/2011

And what happens when a tornado strikes it? Or a fire burns the place down? Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, but should this be a major concern?

[bridge to somewhere]

02:42 AM on 06/02/2011

Powered by coal, almost exclusively. Good work, Apple, selecting one of the worst parts of the nation in regards to renewable energy. Google set up one of their data centers in the NW because we have oodles of hydro, wind, and solar...roughly 85% of our power.

I can just picture the apple-logo-jump-suit-clad coal slingers heaving load after load of coal into the firey archaic ovens of their data center.

[kkrimmer]

01:49 PM on 06/04/2011

it says coal where? or are you just off your meds?

[radioray]

07:48 PM on 06/01/2011

Wonderful! iCloud all under ONE roof. If something should happen, then it all goes down. Great thinking Steve.Think I'll pass.

[theveggiedude]

01:58 PM on 06/01/2011

Wow. It looks like a huge internal disk drive. I bet the Enterprise's computer system has the equivalent of a million of these in the size of a shoe box. I sure wish I was born in the 24th century.

[BaPef Amheh]

01:52 PM on 06/01/2011

Now what would have been nice to see is a bunch of solar panels on the roof of the building, I bet that place is going to eat more power in a month then my home town eats in a year.

[blurredmolly]

07:08 PM on 06/01/2011

Could be passive.

[bridge to somewhere]

02:38 AM on 06/02/2011

It is almost entirely powered by coal. Way to go apple. Could have built that place in the pacific NW where we had to shut off our wind farms because we're making more hydroelectric power than we can use!! But no, Apple prefers coal.

[PaOhIlCa]

12:51 PM on 06/01/2011

It looks like an ipod.

[Ben Wiles]

12:11 PM on 06/01/2011

Would have been nice to see a green roof

[CKMJr]

05:39 PM on 06/01/2011

agreed, but the white roof does reflect much of the sun's rays

[minidriver]

11:58 AM on 06/01/2011

No real mystery or conspiracy here. Google, Yahoo, Mapquest, Bing, etc. get periodic updates for their satellite images from the satellite companies. They don't get updated daily unless they pay for the extra time.