Apple is building a new campus for 20,000 employees - and we just got big hints where it could end up

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• Apple is currently looking for a location for a new campus that could host as many as 20,000 employees.
• North Carolina's Research Triangle region may be a candidate. Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly met with the governor of North Carolinalast week.
• Northern Virginia may also be a candidate for the campus, according to the Washington Post.

Apple may be closing in on a location for a new campus it announced earlier this year - and it could end up being located close to Duke University, where CEO Tim Cook and several other top Apple executives went to school.

North Carolina's Research Triangle region is being considered by Apple for a new campus, Triangle Business Journal reported on Wednesday.

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The process is said to be in an advanced enough stage that North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and state Commerce Secretary Tony Copeland met with Apple CEO Tim Cook on May 11, according to the report.

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Apple has looked at land around Interstate 540, according to Triangle Business Journal.

Cook was in the region to give a commencement speech at Duke University on May 13.

Cooper's office neither confirmed nor denied the report to Business Insider. "We do not share information about economic development projects before they are final, but I will be happy to share more information if or when a decision is made," spokesman Jamal Little said in an email.

Apple's search for a new campus location is being conducted in secret. That's in contrast to Amazon's search for a second headquarters, which issued an open request for proposals.

"We're not doing a beauty contest kind of thing," Cook said in a recent interview. Apple previously announced that it planned to spend $30 billion and hire 20,000 employees in the United States over the next five years. Part of that investment will go towards a new campus, located away from the company's headquarters in Cupertino, California that will hold call center workers at first. Apple didn't immediately return a request for comment.

Northern Virginia may also be a candidate, according to the Washington Post. Officials from the state reportedly pitched locations in Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudon counties to Apple people.

Although tax incentives will most likely be part of the package that lures Apple to a new region, Cook has said that he does not want an "auction kind of process."

"We're narrowing the site selection for a new U.S. campus, and we look forward to sharing more information on that later this year," Cook said on April 29.

Apple's new "spaceship" headquarters in Cupertino, Apple Park, has been called an architectural landmark.

Know anything about Apple's new campus? Email kleswing@businessinsider.com