Walmart-Microsoft inks 5-year deal to strengthen digital innovation

Walmart on Tuesday said it has inked a five-year deal with Microsoft to leverage a broad base of the cloud, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things solutions, a move that will help the retail giant further accelerate its digital transformation.

While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Walmart said it is now embarking on a broad set of cloud innovation projects that leverage machine learning, AI and data platform solutions for a "wide range of external customer-facing services and internal business applications".

Walmart was already using Microsoft services for critical applications and workloads, it said in a statement.
 

As part of the agreement, Walmart has selected the full range of Microsoft cloud solutions, including Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 for enterprise-wide use to help standardise the company's family of brands.

Walmart and Microsoft engineers will also collaborate on the assessment, development, and support phase of moving hundreds of existing applications to cloud-native architectures, the statement said.

"Whether it's combined with our agile cloud platform or leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to work smarter, we believe Microsoft will be a strong partner in driving our ability to innovate even further and faster," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said.