BTEX 2024: How Lenovo is Providing AI-ready Infrastructure for Innovators

Parisi emphasized Lenovo's holistic approach to AI, encapsulated in the term “AI for all.” He highlighted that Lenovo's AI initiatives span from the data centre to edge devices that plan to bring AI applications closer to the consumer. He stated, “We literally cover everything from the pants pocket to the cloud.”

In his view, as AI spreads to more customers, they will expect a quick turnaround for their AI tasks in order for it to be called a good customer experience.

“With AI from a business perspective, how you consume it is very challenging. Because it not only has to live in the hyperscalers and the large clouds where they create the models for it, but when you as a customer or a partner or an individual consume it, you have to be able to consume it where you are,” said Parisi.

“If it takes a long time to do things like video analytics and image recognition and things like that, there's no benefit to you.”

Lenovo’s latest line of data centre, endpoint and edge offerings are designed to tackle this problem. They feature robust connectivity and the ability to meet processing needs across locations.

One of the standout innovations discussed was Lenovo’s AI Innovation Centers. These centres serve as hubs of AI expertise, where over 2,000 employees, including data scientists, are dedicated to exploring and validating various AI technologies.

The global presence of these centres allows for hands-on demonstrations and direct interaction with AI experts who are available for consultation. This setup enables Lenovo to offer tailored AI solutions that address specific business needs, making AI integration smoother for enterprises.

He further mentioned Lenovo’s AI Center of Excellence within the AI Innovation Centers that guides the development of AI solutions with data safety and privacy in mind.

Parisi also delved into specific AI applications, particularly in the retail sector. He described how AI can enhance customer experience and operational efficiency through technologies like Path AI, which analyzes customer movements. He mentioned how one of their retail customers was able to derive ROI within months of deploying a retail video analytics solution.

As the base infrastructure that supports AI developments gets complex, it’ll need higher energy, both from operational power and cooling perspectives. Lenovo’s latest offerings focus on building energy-efficient, water-based cooling architectures that can reduce the load on servers with massive cooling requirements. They can bring down the cost of operations and enable organizations to meet AI processing demands while achieving a green carbon footprint.

“We've got customers that are installing these where they’re going carbon negative but they're actually taking the heat out of the servers and running them externally,” Parisi added.

The proliferation of AI is pushing the demand for edge devices. Lenovo introduced its latest portfolio of compact server units that feature edge computing capabilities across a range of applications. From miniaturized devices to high-performance server racks, the devices are purpose-built to meet AI processing needs and bring down latency issues. 

Parisi held up one of the units in his hand, explaining why its suitable for edge computing. “The reason why we call it an edge server is because it’ll run anywhere from minus five centigrade, all the way up to fifty-five degrees centigrade without air conditioning.”

The edge devices also come with preventive maintenance capabilities and can be integrated with additional components, such as GPUs, to improve performance.