Walmart to Build Tech Hubs in Atlanta, Toronto

Walmart said it will build technology hubs in Atlanta and Toronto and hire more than 5,000 tech associates globally this year as the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer looks to further build out its fastest-growing corporate team. 

Atlanta and Toronto will become Walmart's 15th and 16th tech hubs, which span globally from Bentonville to Seattle to Chennai, India. In a March 15 blog post from Walmart EVP, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Development Officer Suresh Kumar, Walmart said that 140 new tech hires, including data scientists and software engineers, will sign on in Atlanta, while the Toronto hub will launch with 45 new hires. Over the next 12 months, the retailer expects to create several hundred new tech jobs in Toronto. The development of the Toronto tech hub is part of Walmart Canada's $1 billion investment in technology and operations, including store refurbishments, in the country. 

In Atlanta, the new tech hires will join more than 70,000 Walmart associates currently based in Georgia, according to the company. Both the Atlanta and Toronto tech teams will start virtually before transitioning "to our hybrid way of working as we identify physical space for routine collaboration, personal development, networking and culture building," Walmart stated in a news release. 

Kumar wrote that Walmart remains committed to building out diversity within its tech workforce as it grows, in particular "with underrepresented groups like women and people of color, military community members, formerly incarcerated individuals and return-to-work caregivers."

"We strategically chose Atlanta and Toronto as our newest tech hubs because of their growing tech presence, connection to Walmart and broad, diverse talent," Kumar wrote. In 2021, he noted, Walmart became a founding member of OneTen, a coalition of large U.S. employers with a goal of hiring 1 million Black workers into family-sustaining roles in the next 10 years."

The "Fortune 1" company has touted its scale-up of nonretail, tech-centric businesses including the Walmart Connect advertising platform and the "delivery as a service" offering Walmart GoLocal as being powerful tools in helping Walmart bolster its retail omnipresence and dominance, all the while helping it reach its ambition of earning "primary destination status" with customers.