Lenovo Investing $1.2 Billion In AI As It Eyes Edge Growth Via Partners
‘Lenovo is investing $1.2 billion in R&D to help tap into those opportunities and bring those AI initiatives to fruition,’ says Lenovo’s Stacey Goodman at XChange Best of Breed Conference today.
Lenovo is investing $1.2 billion in artificial intelligence to help bring AI to the edge for customers as well as drive partner sales.
“The AI server and storage market is expected to reach $29 billion next year. Lenovo is investing $1.2 billion in R&D to help tap into those opportunities and bring those AI initiatives to fruition,” said Stacey Goodman (pictured), senior director of U.S. VAR Partner Sales for Lenovo, at the 2023 XChange Best of Breed conference today in Atlanta.
Goodman said as Lenovo’s channel organization evolves, the $62 billion technology giant recognizes that it needs to evolve its products and solutions to allow Lenovo partners to tap into and capture new markets and opportunities.
[Related: ControlUp CEO: 5 Reasons Why Partners Need To Jump On Board]
“So we’re bringing AI to the edge for all enterprises with solutions that are powered by our ThinkEdge AI platforms,” she said. “And through a diverse portfolio of on-prem deployments, scalable software, and secure automation of edge deployments—we’re unlocking faster insights and business values for customers across numerous sectors.”
Gabriel Romero, chief marketing officer and global head of alliances at AllCloud, said unlocking insights and business outcomes for customers via data and AI is the correct strategy.
“Everybody is hot on data analytics right now. They know that they need data to make real decisions as quickly as possible,” said Romero. “We see GenAI as a sliver of AI. There’s big AI that really covers everything. Investing in AI is the right thing to do right now. Every customer is asking about it.”
AI Deployments At The Edge Will Increase
Lenovo’s Charles Ferland, vice president and general manager for Edge Computing & Communication Service Providers, said more revenue is expected to be generated from AI deployments in edge environments.
“ With AI—while we’re focusing a lot on the learning, the data center and training our system—we believe that more than 80 percent of the revenue will eventually come from AI deployment at the edge,” said Ferland.
“Because once we’ve trained those systems, once those computer models have been trained—they’re going to be executed at the edge site,” he said.
Lenovo has partnered with various AI superstars, such as Nvidia, to boost its ThinkEdge portfolio to help customers’ AI edge journeys.
Lenovo Is A ‘Channel-Centric Organization’
Goodman said Lenovo, at its core, is a “channel-centric organization.”
“Our goal is a mission to continually provide you with a best-in-class partner experience. And through that, we are looking to have a goal of providing end-to-end solutions to providing you with services, support and the channel programs that you need to be successful,” she said.
Launched in 2021, Lenovo 360 is the company’s global channel framework for partners. The framework gives partners easy access to Lenovo’s portfolio of infrastructure, intelligent devices, services and solutions. It also enables partners to sell with ease through marketing, sales enablement resources and connects partners with subject matter experts and other partners in the ecosystem.
“We’re connecting our partners with each other and with our subject matter experts so that they can share best practices and knowledge,” said Goodman . “ Through our commercial incentives, our competencies and accreditation programs, we’re helping partners deepen their skill sets and their expertise to differentiate themselves in a competitive market.”