The News: Lenovo, at the NVIDIA GTC conference, unveiled a new suite of hybrid AI solutions designed to democratize access to generative AI applications for every enterprise and cloud service provider. This announcement marks a significant leap forward in making AI more accessible and tailored to specific industry needs, thereby catalyzing transformation across various sectors. Read the full press release on the Lenovo website.
Lenovo Empowers Hybrid AI from the Pocket to Cloud with NVIDIA
Analyst Take: Lenovo’s new suite of hybrid AI solutions unveiled at NVIDIA GTC stems from the expanded engineering collaboration announced with NVIDIA during Lenovo Tech World. The innovations aim at helping enterprises and cloud providers with the critical accelerated computing capabilities needed to succeed in the AI era, taking AI from concept to reality and empowering businesses to efficiently develop and deploy new AI use cases that improve business outcomes.
The core of this collaboration between Lenovo and NVIDIA lies in the development of hybrid AI solutions that promise to bring AI closer to the data, regardless of its location. These solutions, optimized for NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, aim to provide developers with the tools necessary for deploying AI applications efficiently and securely. Lenovo’s offering includes access to NVIDIA’s microservices, such as NVIDIA NIM and NeMo Retriever, which we view as pivotal for the development and deployment of AI applications.
Lenovo’s hybrid AI solutions now consist of AI services targeted at accelerating AI transformation, cloud and on-premises AI systems offering a full line of servers with NVIDIA GPUs, and workstation AI solutions that are optimized with NVIDIA AI workloads. Specifically, AI services include new Lenovo AI Advisory & Professional Services that provide experts, resources, and an AI-optimized infrastructure-as-a-service for assisting broader adoption of AI. For instance, TruScale GenAI as a Service can manage customer software, hardware, and generative AI services through TruScale flexible pay-as-you-go options.
From our view, the TruScale offering is integral to the overall success of Lenovo’s hybrid AI proposition by supporting the ability to reduce CO2 emissions and power by up to 20%. Aligning hybrid AI optimization with organization-wide sustainability objectives will become increasingly vital to ensuring that AI-enabled outcomes are not diminished by power consumption offsets.
Lenovo’s ThinkSystem Enterprise AI Servers come with eight NVIDIA HGX (H100/H200/B100) GPUs and time-to-market support for future NVIDIA GPU models that are purpose-built to deliver massive computational performance to the data centers, improve large language model (LLM) and natural language processing (NLP) model development, and support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system. Accordingly, Lenovo now co-designs with NVIDIA to create four new MGX platforms for cloud service providers and enterprises, ensuring time-to-market synchronization with all NVIDIA GPU announcements.
Lenovo is partnering with Anaconda to offer a secure workstation platform for delivering and using AI software tools that can ensure access to the right development tools in a safe and scalable manner. As such, Lenovo workstation AI solutions can enable developing and deploying AI solutions for inferencing, large-scale simulation, and demanding industrial and scientific workflows.
Kirk Skaugen, EVP of Lenovo and President of Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group, emphasized the partnership’s goal to augment intelligence across businesses by leveraging AI compute capabilities where the data resides. This strategic move is expected to drive innovation, digitalization, and growth by enabling businesses to utilize AI for real-time insights and decision-making.
NVIDIA’s Vice President of Enterprise Platforms, Bob Pette, highlighted the transformative potential of AI in enhancing productivity and extracting valuable insights from data. The integration of Lenovo’s solutions with NVIDIA’s technology represents a crucial milestone in amplifying compute performance for AI applications, enabling businesses to harness the power of generative AI from virtually any location.
Lenovo’s announcement also sheds light on the expansion of its ThinkSystem AI portfolio, introducing new servers equipped with NVIDIA GPUs. These servers are designed to offer unparalleled computational capabilities and power efficiency, catering to the demands of generative AI, NLP, and LLM development. The inclusion of NVIDIA’s advanced GPUs and networking platforms underscores Lenovo’s commitment to delivering state-of-the-art AI solutions that are both efficient and scalable.
Furthermore, Lenovo’s focus on sustainability through its Neptune liquid cooling technology and the achievement of a 1.1 PUE with its new servers exemplifies the industry’s shift toward environmentally conscious computing solutions. These efforts align with the growing emphasis on power efficiency and sustainability in the deployment of AI solutions.
Lenovo NVIDIA Hybrid AI Alliance: Looking Ahead
The collaboration between Lenovo and NVIDIA is a testament to the dynamism and potential of the AI market. As enterprises and cloud service providers increasingly adopt AI to drive innovation and efficiency, the demand for specialized, high-performance, and sustainable AI solutions is set to soar.
Lenovo’s announcement highlights the company’s prowess in delivering cutting-edge AI solutions and positions it as a visionary leader in the AI space. By partnering with NVIDIA, Lenovo is well-placed to address the evolving needs of businesses across industries, offering them the tools to leverage AI for competitive advantage.
For example, we are keen on the technology showcase of the Lenovo PG8A0N server, a 1U node for AI featuring Neptune liquid cooling for accelerators, supporting the NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip. In collaboration with NVIDIA, Lenovo will deliver GB200 rack systems that supercharge AI training, data processing, engineering design and simulation. Critically, the NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip can deliver up to 45X faster real-time LLM inference, 40X lower TCO, as well as 40X less energy as Neptune open-loop liquid cooling efficiently removes heat supporting high performance accelerators.
The market dynamics for AI solutions underscore the importance of strategic collaborations in fostering innovation and driving growth. Lenovo’s initiative to democratize AI through its hybrid solutions, in partnership with NVIDIA, is a strategic move that underscores the company’s commitment to advancing AI for all. This collaboration is poised to redefine the landscape of AI solutions, offering enterprises and cloud service providers the agility, efficiency, and scalability required to harness the full potential of AI technologies.
Key Takeaways: Lenovo NVIDIA Advance Smarter AI for All
Overall, we believe Lenovo’s unveiling of hybrid AI solutions in collaboration with NVIDIA marks a significant milestone in the AI domain. This partnership is set to accelerate the deployment of AI applications across various industries, ultimately contributing to a smarter, more efficient, and sustainable future. As the demand for AI-enabled solutions continues to grow, Lenovo’s strategic foresight in collaborating with NVIDIA positions it as a pivotal player in the global AI ecosystem.
Through its partnership with NVIDIA, we find that Lenovo is providing the advancements in performance, cost, and efficiency needed to accelerate AI applications across verticals and assist organizations in swiftly using insights from their data sets, including augmenting retail experiences, reimagining society, and unleashing AI use cases.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
Regarded as a luminary at the intersection of technology and business transformation, Steven Dickens is the Vice President and Practice Leader for Hybrid Cloud, Infrastructure, and Operations at The Futurum Group. With a distinguished track record as a Forbes contributor and a ranking among the Top 10 Analysts by ARInsights, Steven's unique vantage point enables him to chart the nexus between emergent technologies and disruptive innovation, offering unparalleled insights for global enterprises.
Steven's expertise spans a broad spectrum of technologies that drive modern enterprises. Notable among these are open source, hybrid cloud, mission-critical infrastructure, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and FinTech innovation. His work is foundational in aligning the strategic imperatives of C-suite executives with the practical needs of end users and technology practitioners, serving as a catalyst for optimizing the return on technology investments.
Over the years, Steven has been an integral part of industry behemoths including Broadcom, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and IBM. His exceptional ability to pioneer multi-hundred-million-dollar products and to lead global sales teams with revenues in the same echelon has consistently demonstrated his capability for high-impact leadership.
Steven serves as a thought leader in various technology consortiums. He was a founding board member and former Chairperson of the Open Mainframe Project, under the aegis of the Linux Foundation. His role as a Board Advisor continues to shape the advocacy for open source implementations of mainframe technologies.
