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System X, an Xserve G5 supercomputing cluster. CC-licensed pic by Christopher Bowns: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cipherswarm/2414578959/in/photostream/

Google’s Eric Schmidt “resigned” from Apple’s board because Chrome and Android were encroaching on Apple’s core business, or so Steve Jobs says.

But what if the opposite were true? What if Apple is encroaching on Google’s core business?

Later this month, Apple is expected to break ground on a massive new data center in Maiden, North Carolina.

In terms of size, Apple’s data center is as big as they come.

“Apple is planning about 500,000 square feet of data center space in a single building,” says Rich Miller, editor of Data Center Knowledge. “That would place it among the largest data centers in the world… This would qualify as a big-ass data center.”

Question is, what will Apple use it for? Apple’s plans are secret, of course, and some have speculated it’s to support Apple’s growing  MobileMe business and online iTunes stores.

But Miller says the size of the data center hints at something else. Companies building centers this big are getting into cloud computing. Running apps in the cloud requires massive infrastructure: Google-size infrastructure.

“The companies that are building the biggest data centers tend to also have the biggest cloud ambitions,” says Miller.

Full Story: Cult of Mac