MICROSOFTS CATAWBA ADVENTURE.

• Position: NC TREND: Statewide

Microsoft is coming in hot to North Carolina's data center world, albeit more than a decade after its giant tech peers Apple, Google and Facebook.

Over the next 10 years, the Redmond, Washington-based company plans to develop four centers in Catawba County, spread through Conover, Hickory and Maiden. The investment will entail at least $1 billion of investment, split fairly evenly among the three communities that are less than an hour west of Charlotte. At least 50 new permanent jobs are likely.

The cities and Catawba County agreed on incentives that will enable Microsoft to avoid paying half of its real property tax and 85% of personal property taxes over 10 years. It has to spend at least $ 1 billion to get the full deal, which has an option to extend for another decade.

Data centers are a big deal in the region. Catawba County is home to a $1 billion Apple center in Maiden that started in 2008 and is in the midst of a $450 million expansion.

Google picked Lenoir in adjacent Caldwell County for one of its first big server farms in 2007. Facebook announced its data center campus in Forest City in Rutherford County in 2010. Each site received significant local incentives. Each has grown significantly.

Data centers require vast amounts of water, which is plentiful in the region because of the Catawba River and infrastructure developed for the textile and...