SEATTLE — The tech community descended here Tuesday to share Lenovo’s hybrid AI vision and how they intend to get there.
Chief executives from Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., AMD Inc., Qualcomm Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. joined Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing at the Tech World 2024 conference, and laid out an ambitious road map of PCs, chips, agentic AI, smartphones, avatars and more to tap into what they call the industry’s biggest movement since shortly after the moon landing.
Jensen Huang, NVIDIA Corp.’s ubiquitous CEO, was to appear at an afternoon session.
“AI is the most important technological advancement of the last 50 years,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said at the event, several minutes after Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger took to the stage. “It is similar to the beginning of the industrial evolution or the start of the internet. And we have seen as much progress in AI the last two years as we have over the previous ten.”
“We are entering one of the most exciting eras in innovation,” added Gelsinger. “It is the most profound, like the internet. Every company becomes an AI company, and every device is an AI device. AI PC is a defining moment.”
Lenovo brought the chip adversaries together as founding members of the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group, tasked with identifying new ways to expand the x86 ecosystem, enabling compatibility across platforms and shaping the future of the world’s most widely-used computing architecture.
The master of ceremonies through it all, Yang, vouched for his company’s hybrid AI approach, which he defined as a private cloud co-existing with the public cloud to reach enterprises. During a roughly two-hour presentation, he and other Lenovo executives demonstrated Lenovo AI Now, a personal agent that was showcased as an educational aid/tutor.
AI Now is built on Meta’s Llama large language model, leading to a video cameo from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “This is a big reason why we open source Llama,” Zuckerberg said. “We believe open source is the most reliable and trustworthy” manner to build the AI ecosystem through Lenovo and others. “Llama is the Linux of AI.”
Also appearing via a video hookup, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the software giant is integrating Azure into Lenovo’s personalized AI agent.
Aura edition PCs and laptops, powered by Intel Core Ultra Processors and “infused by the superpower of AI” — as Gelsinger put it — signal part of Lenovo’s AI PC play. IDC estimates half of the market will be AI PC shortly, and predominately by the end of the decade.
Lenovo and the non-profit Scott-Morgan Foundation, maker of assistive technology, unveiled a generative AI-powered solution for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other severe disabilities. The integrated solution combines a circular keyboard interface designed by SMF and built by Lenovo, predictive AI from Lenovo, personalized AI voice replicas from ElevenLabs, hyper-realistic avatars from D-ID, and eye-tracking tech from IrisBond to provide fast, accurate and personal communication.
Smarter AI “unleashes human potential” for cognitive intelligence, sensory intelligence and connectional intelligence — all at the same time and continuously, Lenovo Chief Technology Officer Tolga Kurtoglu said.
“This leads to what I call augmented intelligence,” Kurtoglu added. “AI is not just about digital tools, but digital companions. “Agentic AI is the start. It takes action without implicit human prompting.”
To drive home his point, he and AI expert Allie Miller discussed the concept of a car-buying agent with the ability to know a consumer’s taste and desires for a car while taking into account their personal finances to find the right car at the right price.