Amazon, the online retailing giant, officially announced on Tuesday that it will split its “second headquarters” between New York City and a Washington DC suburb in Northern Virginia.

Up to 50,000 jobs and $5 billion in investment are likely to be split between the two centres — to be located in Long Island City, a neighbourhood in the Queens borough of New York City; and Crystal City, located in Arlington County, just outside the Washington DC.

Attracting talent

“These two locations will allow us to attract world-class talent that will help us to continue inventing for customers for years to come,” said Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos.

There was tough competition between State and local governments to house Amazon’s ‘HQ2’. The company had narrowed its list down to 16 areas in January this year, and splitting the second headquarters could ease up pressure on housing and infrastructure for the locations as well as increase the company’s access to the tens of thousands of workers, including engineers and specialists.

The number of new H-1B visas approved for technology companies like Amazon increased in fiscal year 2017, while the total numbers dropped for the top seven Indian IT firms, over fiscal years 2015-2017, as per the National Foundation for American Policy, a non-partisan research organisation. Amazon got 2,515 new approved H-1B initial petitions in 2015, topping the list of U.S. tech giants.