For decades, Lenovo was recognised mainly as a global PC pioneer, innovating form factors, developing rugged ThinkPads, and eventually becoming a leading PC manufacturer.
But today, the company finds itself at the heart of a vastly different opportunity: the AI infrastructure revolution.
Vikash Kumar, GCC segment head at Lenovo India, said – What was once a hardware-focused business has quietly evolved into a diverse technology powerhouse, where almost half of global revenue derives from non-PC sectors such as servers, storage, edge AI, cloud software solutions, and sustainability-driven innovation.
This strategic pivot is not accidental, but it’s engineered into the system. “By 2026, every platform you’re buying will be enabled with a neural processing unit,” Sachin Kinagi, category head of Notebooks at Lenovo India, said at the Machinecon GCC 2025 Summit.
This signals more than an upgrade. It reflects a fundamental shift in the computing model itself. The PC is becoming an AI device. The data centre is becoming an AI factory. And the Edge AI is becoming an intelligent ecosystem powering every industry.
The AI PC Is No Longer Coming, It’s Here
The introduction of Neural Processing Units (NPUs) is reshaping what work devices can do. An NPU is designed to process trillions of AI operations per second while consuming ultra-low power.
For enterprises, this means laptops will run large language models (LLMs) locally rather than rely entirely on cloud-based inference.
Lenovo’s rollout of “AI Now” underscores this transition. Equipped with onboard AI engines and contextual intelligence, these devices adapt to user behaviour, optimise workflows, protect privacy, and deliver real-time insights without hitting the cloud.
Collaboration tools like Teams and Zoom are already leveraging device-side AI engines to offload nearly 70% of their audio and video processing.
What was once a PC is becoming a personal AI platform.
Lenovo’s metamorphosis is quantifiable: “47% of non-PC revenue reflects a shift toward infrastructure, solutions, and services, categories that now power growth,” Sachin mentioned.
Sachin added that its ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile platforms support advanced AI training, model serving, and high-performance workloads, increasingly underpinning mission-critical deployments for hyperscalers and GCCs alike.
Meanwhile, the ThinkEdge series enables inference close to the point of action, factories, hospital labs, retail stores, and logistics hubs, reducing latency and enabling autonomous decision-making.
Lenovo enhances enterprise multi-cloud strategies with storage and hybrid architectures that combine on-premise resilience and cloud agility. The company also invests in AI engines, context-aware computing, and enterprise intelligence to unify data, devices, and workloads.
Hybrid AI
The company envisions enterprises operating across three AI layers. Public AI uses cloud LLMs and generative tools for consumer apps and low-risk workflows, while Enterprise AI involves organisational models trained on company data in secure environments.
Complementing these is Personal or Private AI, where on-device LLMs powered by NPUs ensure privacy and contextual understanding.
This blended approach allows companies to retain control over sensitive information while harnessing the full potential of generative AI. Sachin added that “the future of work will be built on hybrid AI architectures that bring intelligence closer to the user, the edge, or the workload.”
One of Lenovo’s most significant innovations is a manufacturing breakthrough known as low-temperature soldering, a process that dramatically reduces carbon emissions, improves energy efficiency, and enhances device longevity.
Rather than treat sustainability as an afterthought, Lenovo treats it as core engineering. This patented innovation reduces thermal stress on the motherboard and increases component reliability.
In a rare move for a competitive industry, Lenovo made portions of this innovation available globally, enabling greener manufacturing across the sector. It’s a powerful example of ESG meeting engineering excellence.
The Convergence of Hardware, Software, and Partnerships
During the session, Vikash said the future of AI isn’t about any single player. It requires a coordinated ecosystem of hardware, semiconductors, software, cloud platforms, and enterprise builders.
Its model reflects this vision by integrating multiple layers of innovation and collaboration. At the hardware level, Intel’s NPU and chip-level advancements provide the processing power needed for AI workloads.
Meanwhile, one of Lenovo’s latest innovations is the Lenovo Aura Edition, a collaboration with Intel that delivers a significantly enhanced experience for both end users and enterprises.
On the software side, Microsoft and Google’s collaboration platforms enable seamless enterprise workflows, while ISVs are building AI-native applications that leverage this infrastructure.
Creative and design requirements are supported by Adobe and other design software creators, and enterprise developers, along with GCC talent, ensure these solutions are tailored for large-scale organisational deployment.
Vikash mentioned that sectors with stringent privacy and compliance mandates are rapidly adopting on-device and hybrid AI solutions.
In healthcare, applications such as clinical decision support and diagnostics demand secure processing. Legal-tech firms rely on AI for document summarisation and compliance, while the BFSI sector leverages it for risk modelling and fraud detection.
Even manufacturing benefits from predictive maintenance and defect detection. For these industries, where sensitive data cannot risk exposure to public LLMs, Lenovo’s secure, edge-enabled AI approach is not optional but essential.
What Lenovo’s Evolution Means for GCCs
Global capability centres (GCCs) are entering a new era of innovation. AI-rich workloads, model fine-tuning, inference orchestration, workflow automation, and Edge intelligence will increasingly depend on device-side AI, hybrid cloud optimisation, and scalable infrastructure.
Lenovo’s roadmap empowers GCCs to deploy enterprise-grade AI workflows at scale, build on-device or on-prem LLMs, and architect hybrid intelligence ecosystems. It also enables AI-driven edge automation while optimising costs by balancing cloud and local compute resources.
The role of GCCs is no longer support; it is now innovation and acceleration.
From NPUs in AI PCs to edge inference platforms to hybrid AI architectures, Lenovo is building the computing foundation for the next decade.
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