Apple's New Mac Pro Won't Be 'Made in USA' as Production Reportedly Moving to China

While the current Mac Pro has been manufactured in Texas since it was released in 2013, The Wall Street Journal reports that the new ‌Mac Pro‌ unveiled earlier this month will be assembled by Quanta Computer in China.

2019 mac pro side and front
Quanta is said to be ramping up production of the new ‌Mac Pro‌ at a factory near Shanghai, and given lower wages and closer proximity to other Apple suppliers in Asia, the Chinese manufacturing is expected to cost Apple less than it would to make the computer in the United States.

The move would allow Apple to avoid many of the issues its U.S. suppliers have faced in assembling the ‌Mac Pro‌ stateside. The current ‌Mac Pro‌ is Apple's only major hardware product manufactured in the United States, with all others assembled by Chinese contractors, such as Quanta for the Apple Watch.

Here's a video of how the current ‌Mac Pro‌ is made in the United States:


In a statement, an Apple spokesperson said "final assembly is only one part of the manufacturing process," adding that the new ‌Mac Pro‌ is designed and engineered in the United States and includes some U.S.-made components.

As a high-end, expensive workstation for professionals, the ‌Mac Pro‌ is not a high volume product for Apple, but where it is manufactured is notable given the ongoing trade war between the United States and China. President Donald Trump has urged U.S. companies to manufacture products domestically.

Trump's administration has increased tariffs to 25 percent on $200 billion of Chinese imports and has threatened to impose tariffs on $300 billion more goods, including many Apple products. Apple has warned that these tariffs would reduce its economic contributions and threaten its global competitiveness.

The all-new ‌Mac Pro‌ is an absolute powerhouse with up to 28-core Intel Xeon processors, up to 1.5TB of ECC RAM, up to 4TB of SSD storage, up to AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo graphics with 64GB of HBM2 memory, and eight PCIe expansion slots for maximum performance, expansion, and configurability.

2019 mac pro internal view
The new design includes a stainless steel frame with smooth handles and an aluminum housing that lifts off for 360-degree access to the entire system. The housing features a unique lattice pattern to maximize airflow.

Apple says the new ‌Mac Pro‌ will be released in the fall, starting at $5,999.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Related Roundup: Mac Pro
Tags: China, Quanta
Buyer's Guide: Mac Pro (Don't Buy)
Related Forum: Mac Pro

Top Rated Comments

jasnw Avatar
49 months ago
And I'm sure Apple will pass along the cost savings to its customers.
Score: 115 Votes (Like | Disagree)
norbinhouston Avatar
49 months ago
Greedy old Tim Crook, up to his usual one trick pony leadership.
Score: 91 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RyanXM Avatar
49 months ago
With a price tag of $5999, you'd think that there would be enough "overhead" to pay an American worker a living wage to, at the very least, assemble these. The iMac we just bought for a client was assembled in Pennsylvania.
Score: 82 Votes (Like | Disagree)
eatrains Avatar
49 months ago
America can't compete in manufacturing. That's just reality.
Score: 66 Votes (Like | Disagree)
69Mustang Avatar
49 months ago
Yes greedy Tim Cook: keeping costs as low as possible to drive down on prices for customers.
Apple keeping costs as low as possible has nothing to do with driving prices down for consumers. Don't even pretend as if that's actually a consideration.
Score: 50 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Jsameds Avatar
49 months ago
Do people realise Apple is a company and not a charity?

Apparently not.
Score: 40 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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