Lenovo is transitioning from a PC company into a global technology powerhouse by empowering customers' digital intelligence transformation in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), says a senior executive.
Matt Codrington, vice-president and regional general manager of Lenovo Greater Asia-Pacific, said the company's "AI for All" vision focuses on unleashing the power of AI to drive intelligent transformation in every aspect -- from pockets to the cloud -- with its purpose-built AI-ready devices, infrastructure, solutions, and services that empower industries, enterprises and individuals.
Lenovo is working on the next generation of AI-ready and optimised infrastructure to bring powerful, tailored, scalable, and energy-efficient AI to customers through a hybrid approach, Mr Codrington said.
The new era of hybrid AI will help businesses unlock the power of their data wherever it is created and simplify the path to intelligent transformation by extending AI beyond the cloud and delivering it to businesses at the far edge in real-time.
"We offer an end-to-end portfolio, speedy digital transformation and give the customer the choice to choose a private or public foundation model. The hybrid approach can provide greater cost reduction," he said.
Mr Codrington said by planning to embrace intelligence transformation, customers have to understand technology and consider using the appropriate AI tech. Secondly, they will have to consider the operating areas in which to apply AI. Then implementation can be a learning process in which they can adjust the use of AI if necessary.
More importantly, customers need data strategies to ensure their data security, he noted.
Earlier this year, Lenovo introduced a full line-up of more than 40 new devices and solutions powered by AI, include new AI PC innovations across the company's Yoga, ThinkBook, ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, and Legion sub-brands that personalise the computing experience for both consumers and businesses.
NEURAL PROCESSING UNIT
By the second half of this year, the market will see AI PCs that include a neural processing unit (NPU) that is designed to specifically support AI tasks, said Mr Codrington.
"We expect to be the first in the market to launch new AI-based PCs that integrate an NPU," he said.
An NPU is an AI chip that performs AI tasks faster than a graphic processing unit or central processing unit (CPU).
For consumers, AI PCs will be a digital extension and act as a personal assistant to users. They will have the ability to understand user behaviour, preferences and predict what users need.
As well as hardware, Lenovo needs extensive partnerships and an ecosystem to provide more killer apps, Mr Codrington said. It now has 162 partners on board, he said.
Lenovo is also committing a further US$1 billion in investment in AI over three years focused on providing AI devices, AI-ready and AI-optimised computing infrastructure, as well as to embed AI-generated content into the intelligence solutions of vertical industries to help customers improve their productivity.
Mr Codrington also sees various business sectors transitioning towards the adoption of AI, ranging from finance and banking to healthcare, manufacturing and logistics.
"Businesses still need to innovate to gain a comparative advantage, pushing the possibilities and analytic capability, with an increase in productivity being the main reason for businesses to embrace the technology."
Mr Codrington said the market is signalling a rebound. Lenovo's third-quarter results revealed group revenue increased 3% year-on-year to $15.7 billion and revenue from non-PC businesses accounted for 42% of total group revenue.
The contribution of non-PC revenue reflects the success of the company's reorganisation into three core business groups: solutions and services; infrastructure solutions; and intelligence devices.
"The revenue performance reveals green shoots in the market where consumers and businesses are increasingly confident."
Thailand a key market
"Thailand is a very important market for Lenovo, and it is ranked in the top four among 14 markets in the Greater Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan and India," said Mr Codrington.
Thailand has the second-largest market among the digital economies of Southeast Asia and the No.4 device market in the region.
"We are considering investment in the country in various forms from manufacturing-based to sales opportunities as an early adopter market," he said.
Mr Codrington said Lenovo is the only computer manufacturer to have factories in Mexico, the US, Japan and Taiwan. Lenovo was No.1 in Gartner's "Asia/Pacific Supply Chain Top 10" in 2023.
During the pandemic, the company learned the importance of a resilient supply chain. It uses AI to improve its efficiency to serve the "just in time" model for the delivery of parts as technology is constantly changing.
Woraphot Thavornwan, the newly appointed general manager of Lenovo Thailand and the rest of Indochina, said Thailand still has growth opportunities as the PC market signalled a rebound based on many factors. One major factor is the average replacement cycle for a PC is three years, he said.
Other factors include: the migration to Windows 11 as the end of support for Windows 10 is slated for Oct 14, 2025; the emergence of a new generation of CPUs; the government's approval of fiscal 2024 budget spending pertaining to technology projects; and the arrival of AI-enabled PCs.
In the past three quarters, Lenovo has become market leader in Thailand's combined commercial and consumer market, said Mr Woraphot.
"My goal is to maintain the company's leadership in Thailand," he said.
Mr Woraphot predicts stronger corporate customer demand for device-as-a-service and digital workplace solutions, which is a combination of state-of-the-art digital technologies and innovative services that deliver work-related technology, security, efficiency, along with employee satisfaction.
"With the signal for economic recovery, we think this is good year for Lenovo as it already offers end to end solutions from client devices to commercial and enterprise solutions and services," he said.
Thaneth Angkasirisan, newly appointed key account business lead at Lenovo Greater Asia-Pacific, said for the key account business, he sees a corporate trend to adopt AI for business transformation.
Mr Thaneth said Lenovo set a goal to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Currently the company's manufacturing processes, logistics partners, and suppliers are minimising waste as part of this decarbonisation drive.
