By Hritam Mukherjee
BENGALURU, April 16 (Reuters) - Walmart WMT.N has signed a deal for a second office space in the southern Indian city of Chennai, which is fast emerging as a major technology center after being known for years as a manufacturing hub.
Global companies are increasingly setting up local hubs in India to support their daily operations, research and development and cybersecurity, which has benefitted commercial real estate developers in cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.
Chennai, traditionally known for being a manufacturing hub, is now seeing global corporate interest in setting up tech hubs, from major companies such as AstraZeneca AZN.L, UPS UPS.N and Pfizer PFE.N.
Walmart has leased an area of over 465,000 square feet - roughly the size of eight football fields - for an initial period of five years, starting this November, according to a document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
Although Walmart does not run supermarkets in India yet, it has tech offices in cities such as Chennai and Bengaluru. The Bengaluru office, which employs 8,000 workers, is its biggest tech hub globally.
Walmart did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru and Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai; Editing by Sonia Cheema)
((Hritam.Mukherjee@thomsonreuters.com; X: @MukherjeeHritam;))
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