I recently attended Lenovo’s Tech World event in Bellevue, Washington. This annual event, held in different locations worldwide, shares Lenovo’s vision and releases new products for the immediate future.
I have attended these events in the past, but this one was quite different in that its focus was on AI and how Lenovo is integrating it into everything it does.
I have been involved with Lenovo since it bought IBM’s PC business in 2005. Before then, I was working with IBM on its Thinkpad Council. Since Lenovo decided to continue the council, I was asked to stay on, help with the transition and continue my work on mobile research as an outside, independent analyst.
This has given me a ringside seat to Lenovo’s evolution from a Chinese PC company with its original Legend brand of PCs to the # 1 global PC company it is today.
When Lenovo bought the IBM PC business, I was skeptical about its ability to absorb IBM’s PC business, let alone grow it in the future. Now, 19 years later, Lenovo has become a powerhouse not only in PCs but also servers, high-powered workstations, and computing networks and has become a full-service company that can deliver solutions for business, education, and consumers.
Lenovo’s Tech World event kicked off with a keynote from Lenovo Chairman and CEO, Yuanqing Yang, where he shared his vision of One Lenovo and how AI will be integrated into all of its business units and products going forward.
This particular event, which shared a unified AI strategy across all of Lenovo, was perhaps their most important one. To achieve its goals Lenovo have created significant partnerships with Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Nvidia, and even Meta, whose CEOs all spoke at Tech World. These CEOs shared their commitment to Lenovo, especially those related to its broad AI integration across all of its businesses.
Lenovo also bought IBM’s server business in 2014. Many questioned this move by Lenovo as they had no experience in servers at this time. However, to the credit of Lenovo’s management, who clearly had a long-range vision for the evolution of computing, the company has become a powerful provider in the server market.
Becoming a provider of AI servers was highlighted when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Lenovo’s CEO unveiled a new liquid-cooled server with Nvidia’s most powerful Blackwell AI processor. It will be one of the most powerful and efficient AI servers on the market, using Lenovo’s Neptune liquid cooling system.
Today, Lenovo is #1 in PCs, #3 in tablets, #3 in servers, and #1 in high-performance computers.
Lenovo’s extended vision is to integrate AI across all its devices, platforms, and services to be # 1 in providing integrated AI products and services across all its business solutions.
Lenovo is not new to AI and has been using AI in all of its technology in the past in one form or another. However, they have realized that they needed to add AI products and services to become an even more powerful player. At Lenovo’s Tech World, they announced key partnerships with Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Meta, ARM, NXP, TI, Infineon AWS, Marvel, Micron and many others to help them successfully drive a rich hybrid AI solution to current and future customers.
While Lenovo’s Tech World highlighted all of Lenovo’s products and services, there was one important philosophical approach to AI that Lenovo is driving with its hybrid AI strategy going forward.
This strategy was emphasized by Dr. Yong Rui, Senior Vice President of Emerging Technologies, a newly established group dedicated to articulating Lenovo’s future technological vision. He examines Lenovo’s vision through a framework he refers to as AI Plus versus Plus AI.
He explains that today’s approach to the concept of AI Plus is to use generative AI primarily to do the work for us with very little human interaction to an AI response.
But with his concept of Plus AI, the focus is instead on using AI to “augment” whatever you are doing and making it more human-centric. It takes into account a person’s existing talent and skills and augments that with AI.
He believes that Plus AI also adds sensory intelligence when aided by AI and can, for example, give real-time feedback on your surroundings including on-the-spot directions, alerts to hazards, and other pitfalls one might encounter during their day.
Perhaps a more concrete example of this Plus AI vs AI Plus is that I don’t want AI to write for me. What I do want AI to do is make me a better writer.
Lenovo really believes that the true value of AI to individuals is helping them develop personal agents that can augment and enhance their work, education, recreation, exercise, and downtime experiences.
While Lenovo’s focus is on adding AI to everything it does today, which means adding it to its PCs, tablets, smartphones, servers, high-performance products and services, it also shared one other new product vision Lenovo now has on its roadmap.
According to Dr. Rui, who is charged with creating new emerging products that Lenovo could offer in the future, Lenovo sees vehicles as a new computing platform. They are not interested in creating a smart car but rather in becoming a leading provider that can deliver the full stack of computing functions that will make cars smarter and eventually autonomous in the future.
It is a big vision with many challenges. But Lenovo is one of the major tech companies that can deliver the right hardware, software, and associated technologies for future vehicles that are rapidly becoming computers on wheels.
One more thing:
At the end of the keynote, Lenovo’s Chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang brought on stage Giovanni Vincenzo Infantino who is the director of FIFA to announce that Lenovo will be the technology partner for the 2026 Men’s World Cup in the U.S. and the Women’s World Cup in Brazil in 2027. This partnership is a huge deal for Lenovo, which will be providing the key technologies to manage, measure, and broadcast these World Cup matches to a multi-billion audience since the FIFA World Cups are the most watched sports event when they are in progress.
Disclosure: Lenovo, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Meta, Microsoft and ARM, subscribe to Creative Strategies research reports along with many other high tech companies around the world.