On 15 October, Chinese computer and phone manufacturer and AIPC advocate Lenovo hosted its annual Lenovo Tech World conference in Seattle, WA. Under the tagline “Smarter AI for all”, the event is, of course, centred around AI and AI-enabled products. From the Lenovo star product AI Now, powered by Meta’s Llama 3, “a local AI agent transforming PCs into personalized assistants”, to the latest ThinkPad laptops and liquid-cooled servers featuring Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs, as well as the idea of hybrid AI which can run both locally and online.
However, it was the big names gathering at the event that caught all the headlines. Including the surprise announcement from the arch-rivals in the microprocessor world, Intel and AMD, who announced a collaboration to form an x86 ecosystem advisory group. The group also contains a who’s who of the computing world such as Google, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Meta, Oracle and of course, Microsoft and the host Lenovo. The x86 is a computer architecture that has been evolving since its introduction in 1978 as the 8086.
It seems that everybody who’s anybody in the AI and microchips world made an appearance at the event. From the big three: Nvidia, Intel and AMD, to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella who dialled in via videocall. To top it off, Intel CEO Patrick P. Gelsinger, his AMD counterpart Lisa Su and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang all made speeches at the event.
The star-studded event is a show of strength and unity in the industry, as it takes an entire ecosystem of enterprises, products and services to make AI into reality, just like how Lenovo switched from last year’s “AI ready” to “AI now” this year.
Lenovo has recently been reported to have grown rapidly globally, especially in the smartphone sector, where it occupies over 10% of the market share as a top 3 brand in North America. Its smartphone revenue also grew 35% in Europe. Meanwhile, its AIPC business also served as a source of growth last year, especially in Q4. With AI PC projected to grow to 60% of the market in 2027 and 85% in 2028, Lenovo’s collaboration with chip makers such as Nvidia and AI model builders like Meta will certainly put it at the cutting edge of commercialising the concept.
