Enterprise tech vendor and PC giant Lenovo is fully committed to harnessing the power of AI. At the recent Lenovo TechWorld 2023 event, the company unveiled its vision, strategy, partnerships, and product direction for integrating generative AI and foundation models into its portfolio. Lenovo has been steadily incorporating AI capabilities into its lineup throughout the year, with the launch of data management for AI in July and its TruScale edge service in September.
Lenovo is now diving deeper into its AI strategy by outlining plans to build hybrid foundation models that leverage public large language models (LLMs) fine-tuned on enterprise data. These models will include privacy controls, similar to offerings by Cohere and Salesforce. Additionally, Lenovo aims to develop personal foundation models tailored to individual needs.
As expected, Lenovo announced a partnership with Nvidia, encompassing both hardware and software enablement for AI. Lenovo’s Chief Technology Officer, Yong Rui, emphasized that the future of AI lies in hybrid AI ecosystems. The company plans to leverage publicly available foundation models while also working on private and personal models.
Partnerships and Hybrid AI Framework
When asked about the specific LLMs Lenovo will utilize, Rui stated that the company will primarily rely on partners without disclosing their names. On the private AI side, Lenovo is working on developing private foundation models through fine-tuning and enterprise knowledge integration with a vector database. Rui further highlighted the need to connect with existing enterprise systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM), to efficiently accomplish IT enterprise tasks.
Lenovo has also been working on compressing foundation models to make them lightweight and compatible with personal devices. Rui mentioned a technique called joint model pruning and quantization for compression, which optimizes larger models to run on personal devices. The Lenovo Hybrid AI framework includes a data management and privacy proxy module that ensures data privacy while enabling effective query understanding, encoding, and decoding.
Extended Partnership with Nvidia and AI Deployment Support
Lenovo announced an extended partnership with Nvidia during the TechWorld 2023 event, focusing on advancing Lenovo’s Hybrid AI vision. The collaboration involves hardware integration with the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR675 V3 server and ThinkStation PX workstation, both optimized to run Nvidia AI Enterprise software. Additionally, Lenovo is developing a new set of Nvidia Omniverse optimized hardware set to launch in 2024.
Lenovo is also expanding its professional services to support AI deployment and adoption. With the understanding that AI implementation can be daunting for many companies, Lenovo aims to assist organizations in identifying opportunities and implementing solutions at scale, ensuring speed and efficiency.
AI-Powered Digital Workspaces and Sustainability
AI is playing a crucial role in Lenovo’s digital workspace solutions, branded as Care One, aimed at enhancing workplace productivity. Care One utilizes generative AI engines to provide highly automated and personalized support to users.
Lenovo has also integrated sustainability into its AI-powered initiatives. The company has developed a sustainability engine that allows businesses to design their ideal IT environment while making sustainable choices. Through the use of AI technology, Lenovo helps users visualize the impact of their business choices on their sustainability objectives.
AI Capabilities in PCs and Devices
Daryl Cromer, Lenovo’s Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of PCs and Smart Devices, expressed the company’s vision of adding AI capabilities to various devices, including PCs. Cromer envisions an AI-powered PC with an assistant that assists users in performing tasks on their devices. This concept bears resemblance to Microsoft’s Windows Copilot, but Lenovo has an advantage with its control over the underlying hardware.
Lenovo sees AI as a tool to enhance user experiences and streamline device management. For instance, Lenovo’s device intelligence incorporates an AI engine to monitor device health, proactively identify issues, and provide timely fixes. The ultimate goal, as Cromer puts it, is to place AI in the hands of users.
