Inside Walmart's US$1bn AI Upskilling Plan with Google
As AI reshapes business operations across sectors, major corporations are accelerating technology deployment alongside strategic workforce enablement programmes to maximise ROI on their AI investments.
Donna Morris, Chief People Officer of Walmart, highlights the competitive imperative of AI capability development when examining global markets.
In conversation with Fortune, she said: "Let's look at China. Five-year-olds are learning DeepSeek, and that says a lot about how they believe in capability building. What would it do to our US economy, if we all leaned into that opportunity?"
Walmart is deploying AI tools enterprise-wide, backed by nearly US$1bn in technical training initiatives covering its 1.6 million employees.
The retailer's approach combines technology adoption with systematic capability building to ensure operational effectiveness.
The company has partnered with Google to launch the Google AI Professional Certificate, a programme designed to address the technical skills gap that could limit AI implementation success.
How Accenture-Ziff Davis Deal Boosts AI Infrastructure Firms
Ziff Davis has sold its Connectivity division to Accenture for US$1.2bn in a strategic move that could reshape how AI infrastructure providers, cloud platforms and enterprises measure and optimise the network foundations that underpin AI workloads.
The Ziff Davis Connectivity division spans globally-recognised brands in fixed broadband, mobile and Wi‑Fi network design, intelligence, testing and incident detection, including Ookla, Speedtest, Ekahau, Downdetector and RootMetrics.
These platforms help service platforms and enterprises optimise networks, elevate digital experiences and ensure the reliable, low-latency connectivity that AI systems increasingly depend on.
In 2025, Connectivity generated US$231m in revenue, which constitutes around 16% of total Ziff Davis revenues.
ABB and NVIDIA: Delivering Industrial-Grade Physical AI
ABB and NVIDIA are making bold moves in the realm of industrial AI, with ABB Robotics announcing the integration of NVIDIA Omniverse libraries into RobotStudio, its software programming, design and simulation suite for industrial robotics.
The collaboration enables manufacturers to deploy physical AI in real-world robotics applications through accurate digital simulation and synthetic data generation.
By combining NVIDIA accelerated computing and simulation technologies with ABB robotics software, the companies are bidding to close the gap between virtual training environments and real-world deployment.
Marc Segura, President of ABB Robotics, explains: "Using NVIDIA accelerated computing and simulation technologies, we have removed the last barriers to making industrial and physical AI a reality at a global scale by closing the sim-to-real gap.
"For more than 50 years, ABB Robotics has led the evolution of intelligent industrial automation, from pioneering the first generation of fully-electric industrial robots to advancing digital twin simulation through RobotStudio and shaping a new area of autonomous and versatile mobile robots. Today’s announcement with NVIDIA brings physical AI to industry at scale."
How ORO Labs is Powering Procurement Orchestration with AI
AI is increasingly pivotal to procurement orchestration, enabling practitioners to improve productivity across the board.
Having successfully secured US$100m in Series C funding, ORO Labs, the AI-native procurement orchestration company, is now well-positioned to support more customers and help them address growing procurement challenges.
ORO Labs works to deliver seamless user experiences that could boost business operations and efficiency. Its AI-native platform allows companies to shorten their cycle times, decrease risk through end-to-end process visibility and remain agile to market changes.
The platform is designed to help procurement teams achieve a streamlined transformation process.
Founded in 2020 by Lalitha Rajagopalan, Yuan Tung and Sudhir Bhojwani, ORO was created to simplify complex business systems, particularly as ongoing global volatility reshaped the market and introduced more intricacies on a daily basis.
IFS Softeon: Industrial AI for Intelligent Supply Chains
A statement acquisition has played out in the field of industrial AI.
Now operating as IFS Softeon – after world’s leading industrial AI vendor IFS announced its acquisition of best-in-class warehouse management software provider, Softeon – the resulting company offers an outstanding opportunity for industrial supply chain excellence.
The acquisition means intelligence can be now be embedded into end to end supply chain operations.
Mark Moffat, CEO of IFS, says: “The introduction of IFS Softeon means every enterprise wrestling with the complexity of modern supply chains now has access to something genuinely new: end-to-end supply chain intelligence, from strategic decision-making to physical execution on the warehouse floor.
“Industrial AI meets limitless warehouse execution. That’s a combination that will supercharge what’s possible for our customers.”
Executives
Donna Morris
Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer
Julie Sweet
Chair
Mark Moffat
Chief Executive Officer
Sudhir Bhojwani
Co-founder & CEO
