Walmart, IIT Madras Launch Tech Centre

Walmart Global Tech (WGT) has partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) to establish the Walmart Centre for Tech Excellence, aiming to empower Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the manufacturing and retail sectors. The centre will work towards developing cutting-edge solutions that will help MSMEs adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) along with digitisation to drive operational efficiency and profitability.

This partnership is another step ahead in Walmart’s commitment to equipping local entrepreneurs with tools to augment their businesses and promote sustained growth for the Indian MSME sector. The centre will work towards building an open-sourced, domain-agnostic platform that will develop engineering analytics solutions, making them widely accessible. Additionally, the centre will build a repository of case studies to accelerate AI adoption in the manufacturing and retail industries. 

These case studies will also be leveraged to deliver skilling programmes focused on the basics of AI and its application in the sectors. 

Walmart Centre for Tech Excellence was launched at an inaugural event in the presence of Suresh Kumar, Global Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Development Officer (CDO), Walmart Inc, Balu Chaturvedula, SVP & Country Head, Walmart Global Tech and V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, Prof. Raghunathan Rengaswamy, Dean (Global Engagement), IIT Madras and Mahesh Panchagnula, Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations), IIT Madras. Key leaders from Walmart and senior faculty members of IITM were also present at the event.

“Through this Centre, we hope to support MSMEs with cutting-edge technologies in AI and IoT, provide a domain-agnostic solution platform for AI/ML implementations and upskill the manpower to be able to leverage these technologies to be globally competitive”, Raghunathan Rengaswamy, Dean (Global Engagement), IIT Madras, said.

“With Artificial Intelligence impacting every walk of life, there is an urgent need to improve and empower MSME processes and operations through AI”, Mahesh Panchagnula, Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations), IIT Madras, said.