Latest news with #SumirBhatia
Time of India
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Time of India
How Lenovo is using Formula 1 to test the future of AI
Lenovo is charting its own course towards a future defined by artificial intelligence and sustainability-- and the tech giant has chosen Formula 1 racetrack as its innovation ground. The company's collaboration with Formula 1 is evolving into a critical technology partnership, underpinning the sport's increasingly complex data and AI demands. Each race weekend involves the transfer of up to 500 terabytes of data between the racetrack and F1's UK-based Media and Technology Centre. This setup then supports the broadcasting channels, streaming platforms such as F1TV and Fancode live broadcasting, team decision-making, and technical operations. On-site hardware, including AI-ready ThinkStation workstations and AIPCs, are tested under extreme racing conditions to ensure performance in high-vibration, dusty, and temperature-variable environments. These systems are designed to support AI applications ranging from local inferencing to secure voice identification, enabling faster decision-making and reduced reliance on cloud-based computing. While the partnership reflects Lenovo's ambition to lead in hybrid AI infrastructure , it also highlights Formula 1's drive to modernise and decarbonise its operations ahead of its net-zero 2030 target. So, is Lenovo building its own AI stack? Not in the way some Big Tech giants are—but Lenovo is carving a unique space through its Hybrid AI Advantage, an end-to-end ecosystem that spans from hardware to inference-layer management. 'We ourselves are not investing in developing our LLM, but then we will be partnering with pretty much all the major LLM Developers and then we will have our own AI libraries which are more use cases, agent management platform, and services wrapper. So yes, to a certain extent we own our own solution, Sumir Bhatia, President of Lenovo's Asia Pacific Infrastructure Solutions Group, told ETAuto in an exclusive conversation. This strategy enables Lenovo to offer modular, scalable solutions for businesses of all sizes. Enterprises can select from a library of models and solutions tailored to industry-specific use cases—like security operations, IT operations, or customer service—without needing to build or train models from scratch. 'Leveraging partners' infrastructure and using small language modules brings IT ops, security ops software together, which makes integration a lot easier,' added Bhatia. Energy Efficiency at the Core As AI models become increasingly complex, the demand for computational power—and consequently, energy consumption—has surged. Recognising this challenge, Lenovo has invested in innovative solutions to enhance energy efficiency in its AI infrastructure. To align with F1's broader goals around operational efficiency and sustainability, Lenovo is considering deploying its Neptune liquid-cooling technology--which can reduce data centre power consumption by up to 40 per cent--at F1's UK hub. The Neptune liquid cooling system , which utilises warm water to cool servers, eliminates the need for traditional chilled water systems. This approach not only reduces energy consumption but also allows for the repurposing of excess heat to warm buildings in colder climates, contributing to overall sustainability efforts. Bhatia emphasised the significance of energy efficiency, stating, "You can save up to 40 per cent power by leveraging Neptune. It can bring up to almost 100 per cent efficiency in removing heat." Clearly, Lenovo's AI strategy reflects a holistic approach that balances technological innovation with real-world applicability and sustainability. By investing in energy-efficient infrastructure, developing practical AI use cases, and forging global partnerships, the company is positioning itself as a key player in the evolving landscape of AI infrastructure
Time of India
29-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Lenovo study: GenAI to drive 43% of AI spend in India by 2025
Business leaders and IT decision-makers confirm the accelerating shift toward ROI-driven-AI investments as organizations increase AI spending by 3.3x in AP and 2.7x in India, according to the third edition of Lenovo's CIO Playbook 2025 - It's Time for AI-nomics. Commissioned by Lenovo, the research is based on a global IDC study of 2,900+ respondents, including 900+ IT and business decision-makers (ITBDMs) from 12 AP Stages of AI Adoption – ROI the greatest barrierDespite the increasing spends, AI adoption in India remains in its early stage with 49% of organizations either evaluating or planning to implement AI in the next 12 months. This lags behind the AP average (56%) and aligns with the global average (49%) with ROI emerging as the key barrier to quick adoption. Delivering ROI for AI is a long-term endeavor that requires balancing AI experiments with those that can be scaled. Interestingly, AP organizations expect a 3.6x ROI on average from their AI projects, which requires a measured approach to scaling AI and building internal capabilities. India's gradual pace reflects a focus on improving regulatory compliance, enhancing customer experience, and accelerating time to market while overcoming business challenges such as data quality issues, unavailability of AI expertise and IT infrastructure costs. Overcoming Organizational Readiness Challenges Evolving business priorities each year reflect a deeper understanding of what it takes to drive AI growth, bringing greater awareness of its risks as well. Ethical issues and biases are the top AI risks this year, yet only 24% globally and 25% in AP have fully enforced AI GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) policies. In India, 19% of CIOs report fully implemented enterprise AI GRC policies. This highlights the urgent need for a structured approach for what has emerged as the #1 priority for businesses in AP. Effective AI governance requires explainability, ethical frameworks, accountability, model governance, enhanced privacy, security and integrated human oversight. "Business priorities are shifting in Asia Pacific," said Sumir Bhatia, President, Asia Pacific Infrastructure Solutions Group, Lenovo, "For 2025, governance, risk, and compliance have jumped 12 spots to become the top priority, highlighting the focus on secure and responsible AI. Employee productivity has also climbed from #7 to #2, underscoring its growing importance. Lenovo is committed to making AI accessible, ethical, and impactful—helping businesses of all sizes thrive in the AI era." GenAI Adoption Accelerates GenAI is set to transform enterprise workflows, commanding 43% of AI implementation spends in 2025 in India: IT operations lead as the top AI use case across Asia Pacific, while in India, sales takes the top is more focus on cybersecurity (#2) and software development (#3) in India marketing (#2) and software development (#3) take precedence. On-Prem and Hybrid Infrastructures Dominate The report reveals that 65% of organizations in Asia Pacific are opting for on-premise or hybrid solutions to power AI workloads. This preference is driven by the need for secure, low-latency environments, and operational flexibility. Meanwhile, 19% still rely on public cloud services. India reflects a similar trend, with 63% using hybrid or on-prem, while the remainder depend on public cloud. "Hybrid architectures offer the best of both worlds—scalability and control," noted Amit Luthra, Managing Director, Lenovo ISG India . " Globally, 63% of organizations prefer on-premise and hybrid infrastructures for AI, with India mirroring this trend. This alignment demonstrates a clear focus on driving innovation while staying secure and compliant for the unique demands of AI. With its end-to-end cutting-edge AI solutions, smarter infrastructure, and strategic partnerships, Lenovo is driving Smarter AI for all." AI PCs: Early Adoption Signals Productivity Gains AI-powered PCs are gaining traction in AP, with 43% of organizations seeing significant productivity gains. While awareness is increasing, local adoption remains slow across markets. In India, 53% of organizations are already in the planning stage for AI-powered PC adoption. As the technology matures and demonstrates ROI, the adoption curve will accelerate, driving more digital workplace solutions. The Need for Skilled Partnerships With organizations scaling their AI efforts, 34% of AP CIOs and 29% of Indian CIOs are actively leveraging professional AI services to navigate complexities in data management, talent shortages, and cost efficiency. Interestingly, an additional 54% of CIOs in India are exploring or planning to engage these services in the near future. These collaborations help bridge internal capability gaps, enabling organizations to focus on upskilling their teams and building long-term resilience. "AI adoption is not just about the short-term gains. Organizations need to invest in the efficiency of the design, deployment and integration of AI solutions to their operations that enable tracking of the impact. Professional AI services play a key role here and help organizations successfully adopt AI through outcome-led approach. Solutions like Lenovo's AI Fast Start further accelerate this process, helping businesses quickly pilot, optimize, and scale AI initiatives with expert guidance and tested frameworks,' said Fan Ho, Executive Director and General Manager, Solutions and Services Group, Lenovo Asia Pacific.
Techday NZ
28-04-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Lenovo unveils AI-optimised storage for faster enterprise ROI
Lenovo has announced a significant expansion of its data storage portfolio with the release of new AI-optimised storage solutions aimed at supporting enterprise AI and data modernisation strategies. The new portfolio consists of 21 ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile models and is designed to assist organisations in addressing challenges related to AI deployment, virtualisation, and sustainability. The updates encompass storage arrays, software defined infrastructure, and new solutions intended to deliver improved efficiency, performance and scalability required by modern data centres. "The new Lenovo Data Storage Solutions help businesses harness AI's transformative power with a data-driven strategy that ensures scalability, interoperability, and tangible business outcomes powered by trusted infrastructure," said Scott Tease, Vice President and General Manager of Infrastructure Solutions Product Group at Lenovo. "The new solutions help customers achieve faster time to value no matter where they are on their IT modernisation journey with turnkey AI solutions that mitigate risk and simplify deployment." The range includes the introduction of AI Starter Kits for the Lenovo Hybrid AI Platform, pre-configured options designed to accelerate enterprise adoption of AI, notably for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflows. Also launched is the ThinkAgile HX Series GPT-in-a-Box solution, equipped with Lenovo Neptune Liquid Cooling technology. Lenovo states that this is the industry's first liquid-cooled hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) appliance, capable of providing up to 25% energy savings over previous generations. "This refresh is an imperative step in supporting local organisations achieve their AI ambitions. We know AI investment in ANZ is accelerating, growing fourfold in 2025, yet our CIO Playbook highlights that ROI remains a key barrier to AI adoption" said Sumir Bhatia, President, Asia Pacific Infrastructure Solutions Group, Lenovo. "We are assisting in speeding up ROI, particularly with our industry-first liquid-cooled HCI appliance, which will yield up to 25% energy savings over previous generations." Among the products launching as part of this portfolio refresh is the Lenovo ThinkAgile SDI V4 Series, which is described as a full-stack, turnkey solution intended to streamline IT infrastructure and facilitate computing for data-driven workloads, including AI large language models (LLMs) inferencing. The ThinkSystem Storage Arrays are also part of the release, with claims of offering up to three times faster performance and power consumption reductions, translating to up to 97% energy savings and 99% improvement in storage density over legacy hardware based on 10K HDDs. The converged ThinkAgile and ThinkSystem hybrid cloud and virtualisation solutions now allow for independent scaling of compute and storage capabilities, with Lenovo reporting potential software licensing cost reductions of up to 40% by enabling additional storage without incurring extra licensing charges. The ThinkAgile HX Series GPT-in-a-Box offerings, which use Neptune Liquid Cooling, are engineered to allow turnkey AI inferencing suitable for distributed applications across edge and cloud environments. The solution is positioned to reduce energy usage, which Lenovo states will increase return on investment and allow organisations to achieve data-driven outcomes faster. The AI Starter Kits for the Lenovo Hybrid AI Platform come as pre-configured packages combining compute, storage, GPUs, and networking components. These kits are intended to be scalable and adaptable to various organisational needs and to minimise the complexity involved with deploying enterprise AI services. Storage arrays configured with the AI Starter Kits support unified file, block, and object storage, leveraging SSD flash technology to accelerate time to insight from enterprise data. Bringing computation capabilities closer to the source of enterprise data is a growing requirement for AI model training and inference tasks. Lenovo's new ThinkAgile SDI V4 Series and ThinkSystem Storage Arrays are positioned as full-stack AI-ready infrastructure options for organisations at the start of their AI journey. Additionally, the new hybrid cloud and virtualisation solutions are designed to offer flexibility and operational simplicity. For virtualisation, the Lenovo ThinkAgile Converged Solution for VMware brings together features from the ThinkAgile VX Series and ThinkSystem DG Series storage arrays. The aim is to provide a unified hybrid cloud platform capable of supporting diverse storage workloads, facilitated by integrated lifecycle management and operational features. The new ThinkAgile V4 series now includes what Lenovo describes as the industry's first liquid-cooled HCI appliance, specifically targeting the efficiency challenges of high-powered AI workloads. The company asserts up to 25% energy savings when compared with the previous generation, and this hardware is positioned as a repeatable solution for swift AI integration. The security aspect of Lenovo's storage solutions includes features like Premier Enhanced Storage Support, which provides expert support and rapid response for IT teams. Additionally, the ThinkSystem DG and DM storage arrays have new AI-powered autonomous ransomware protection that employs machine learning to proactively identify and mitigate cyber threats. Lenovo Data Storage Solutions also include the company's XClarity systems management software, offering comprehensive security, management, encryption, and compliance features for storage management across enterprise environments.
India Today
25-04-2025
- Business
- India Today
GenAI set to dominate India's AI spending with 43 per cent share by 2025: Lenovo CIO Playbook
India is doubling down on AI, and generative AI (GenAI) is leading the charge. According to the Lenovo CIO Playbook 2025, businesses in India are set to increase their AI investments by 2.7 times, with GenAI expected to command a remarkable 43 per cent of total AI spending by next year. While adoption is still in the early stages for many, the report gives us a clear idea of strong momentum — backed by a growing focus on long-term returns, compliance, and smarter infrastructure 49 per cent of Indian organisations are either evaluating or planning AI implementation within the next 12 months, in line with the global average. Although slightly behind the Asia Pacific (AP) average of 56 per cent, this signals a steady pace driven by strategic planning rather than hesitation.'Business priorities are shifting in Asia Pacific,' said Sumir Bhatia, President, Asia Pacific Infrastructure Solutions Group, Lenovo. He added, 'For 2025, governance, risk, and compliance have jumped 12 spots to become the top priority, highlighting the focus on secure and responsible AI.' The Playbook also notes India's rising interest in hybrid and on-premise AI infrastructure. Around 63 per cent of Indian companies prefer these environments over public cloud, seeking secure and low-latency setups for AI workloads. 'Hybrid architectures offer the best of both worlds — scalability and control,' said Amit Luthra, Managing Director, Lenovo ISG is taking centre stage across use cases. In India, sales leads as the top AI function, followed by marketing and software development. Across AP, IT operations, cybersecurity, and software development are seeing greater AI ethical concerns and bias risks remain top challenges, AI governance is catching up. Currently, 19 per cent of Indian CIOs have fully implemented AI GRC (governance, risk and compliance) policies — slightly behind the AP average of 25 per cent. This area is expected to grow as regulatory awareness organisations are beginning to explore the productivity potential of AI PCs. Over half (53 per cent) of Indian businesses are in the planning phase for AI-powered PCs, with many early adopters already reporting productivity address complexity and skill gaps, 29 per cent of Indian CIOs are working with professional AI service providers. A further 54 per cent are exploring such partnerships to fast-track implementation and boost internal capabilities.'AI adoption is not just about the short-term gains,' said Fan Ho, Executive Director and General Manager, Solutions and Services Group, Lenovo Asia Pacific. She added, 'Solutions like Lenovo's AI Fast Start further accelerate this process, helping businesses quickly pilot, optimise, and scale AI initiatives with expert guidance and tested frameworks.'
