Apple Inc. today announced that it will open a massive $1 billion campus in Austin as part of an expansion plan to add 20,000 employees nationwide through 2023.

Currently, the iPhone maker has 90,000 workers in the United States. Austin is already home to a major Apple hub that employs 6,200 staffers, which makes it the company’s largest office outside its California headquarters. The new $1 billion campus will be located less than a mile away in North Austin and is expected initially to accommodate 5,000 employees with capacity for 10,000 more.

Apple has big plans for the location. The company said that the campus will serve a “broad range of functions” including engineering, research and development, finance, sales, customer support and operations. The various teams will be spread out over a 144-acre site that will be powered entirely by renewable energy.

For choosing Austin, the iPhone maker reportedly stands to receive a $25 million grant from the state of Texas. It’s also expected to get tens of millions of dollars more in local tax breaks. That’s certainly nothing to sneeze at, but the sum pales in comparison with the $2.4 billion worth of incentives Amazon.com Inc. has secured as part its high-profile — and controversial — HQ2 project.

The online retail giant last month announced that it will build two $2.5 billion campuses in New York and Arlington County, Virginia, with 25,000 employees each. The decision followed a high-profile bidding war that saw no fewer than 238 U.S. cities submit bids.

Apple has deliberately opted to take a more low-key approach with its project. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook took a direct shot at Amazon’s handling of the HQ2 bidding process in a January interview, saying “we didn’t want to create this contest because what comes out of that, you wind up putting people through a ton of work.”

“Talent, creativity and tomorrow’s breakthrough ideas aren’t limited by region or zip code, and, with this new expansion, we’re redoubling our commitment to cultivating the high-tech sector and workforce nationwide,” Cook said in a prepared statement today.

Alongside the Austin campus, Apple will open new offices in Seattle, San Diego and California’s Culver City. The company said that it will employ more than 1,000 workers in each location. The iPhone maker also plans to hire hundreds of additional workers at its existing sites in Pittsburgh, New York and Boulder, Colorado.

Photo: Apple