Duracell Opens $56 Million Atlanta R&D Center. Its CEO Shares What Comes Next.
ATLANTA, October 7 (HYPEPOTAMUS) - Duracell, the 100-year-old battery giant, has officially opened its new $56 million Global Innovation Center for Research and Development at Science Square Labs in Atlanta. First announced in early 2025, the 83,000-square-foot facility in West Midtown is set to serve as the central anchor for the company's global battery technology innovation network and deepen Duracell’s Georgia footprint.
Located adjacent to Georgia Tech, the center unites scientists, engineers, and cross-functional teams to accelerate battery innovation from concept to commercialization.
Representatives from the State of Georgia, the City of Atlanta, and Georgia Tech joined Duracell executives for a ceremonial ribbon cutting to mark the official opening.
"Georgia has been a vital home for Duracell for decades, and expanding our footprint into Science Square was a natural next step in that partnership," said Roberto Mendez, Chief Executive Officer at Duracell. "By positioning our teams within a thriving innovation ecosystem, we are giving our world-class R+D organization the platform, technology and collaborative environment they need to power the future.”
What It Means For Georgia
Duracell has long had a strong presence in the State of Georgia, with a manufacturing plant in LaGrange and a distribution center in Fairburn.
The Atlanta R&D center will house over 100 jobs, and Mendez told Hypepotamus that hiring is well underway.
“A large proportion of the positions associated with our Atlanta investment have already been filled,” Mendez said. “Importantly, we have been very successful in recruiting locally, bringing talent into the organization across a wide range of levels and disciplines. That has been one of the real benefits of being in Atlanta — access to a strong and diverse talent base — and we expect local recruitment to continue as we build out the organization.”
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Duracell Chief Technology Officer Liben Hailu emphasized the location's hiring advantages, adding, “The strategic placement of our new facility allows us to tap into a rich pipeline of diverse talent coming from Georgia Tech and neighboring research institutions.”
While anchoring technical leadership in Atlanta, Duracell maintains a distributed executive structure. Asked about executive team presence, Mendez noted, “Duracell operates as a global company, and our executive leadership team is distributed across a number of locations around the world. Atlanta is now a major center for our innovation and R&D organization, and the Science Square facility brings together a significant concentration of our technical and scientific leadership.”
With the opening of the new Atlanta center, Duracell also aims to play an active role in the local ecosystem.
“For Duracell, community investment means becoming an active part of Atlanta’s innovation and education ecosystem,” Mendez told Hypepotamus. “We see tremendous opportunities to build partnerships with local universities, support STEM education and outreach programs that expose high school students to science and technology careers, and create stronger connections between industry and academia. We also look forward to engaging with Atlanta’s growing startup community and working more closely with local suppliers and technology partners.”
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