On April 18, the 10th Lenovo Tech World (2024 Lenovo Tech World) was successfully held in Shanghai. Yang Yuanqing, Chairman and CEO of Lenovo Group, delivered the opening speech entitled “AI for All, Fill the World with AI”, detailing Lenovo's core proposition, strategic vision and latest technological achievements based on hybrid artificial intelligence judgment, and unveiled a new AI species — an AI PC series product with built-in personal intelligence “Lenovo Xiaotian”. This is also a truly personalized artificial intelligence computer in the current Chinese market.
“This new species has five major characteristics.” Yang Yuanqing explained that the first feature is that it is equipped with a personalized AI Agent agent - Lenovo Xiaotian. Xiaotian has a built-in personal model and can interact naturally with users. It can truly understand your natural language and intentions, is good at learning and reflection, has superhuman memory, knows your responsibilities and boundaries, and can form logical and rigorous reasoning chains to break down complex tasks and make plans.” With it, AI is no longer an emptiness floating in the sky and hiding behind clouds, but an intelligent assistant full of energy and within reach.”
In addition to the built-in Xiaotian smart device, the artificial intelligence personalized computer also has a personal knowledge base, including the local heterogeneous AI computing power of the CPU, GPU, and NPU, connected to an open artificial intelligence application ecosystem, and can protect personal data and privacy security. Yang Yuanqing said, “With these five features, PCs will no longer be personal computers, but AI personalized computers.”
In his speech, Yang Yuanqing also focused on sharing two judgments on the future development of artificial intelligence and the three pillars driving the implementation of hybrid artificial intelligence.
The first judgment is that AI actually enhances rather than replaces human intelligence. Yang Yuanqing pointed out that the so-called “artificial intelligence” Artificial Intelligence should probably be called “enhanced intelligence” Augmented Intelligence, because AI is essentially a technical means, and with its help, human imagination will be more easily transformed into reality.
The second judgment is that hybrid artificial intelligence is a general trend in the development of artificial intelligence, and it is also an inevitable path for thousands of households and industries to connect with AI. According to Yang Yuanqing, the public model is a catalyst and accelerator for the spread of artificial intelligence, but in actual use, its further popularization and application is limited by aspects such as network speed, cloud efficiency, and cost considerations. In terms of data security and privacy protection, the public model is inherently inadequate.
“The big public model is essentially a type of public intelligence. To be used more widely, it also needs to be more personalized and meet the requirements of privacy and personal information protection, which requires necessary complements with other artificial intelligence technologies.” Yang Yuanqing pointed out that the big personal model and the big enterprise model, as well as personal intelligence and enterprise intelligence developed on their basis, can take on this responsibility.
As an example, he further stated that personal intelligence will operate on personal smart terminals or edge devices through large-scale model compression technology, receive instructions in a natural interactive manner, and make better inferences and actions through personal travel records and shopping preferences stored on the device. Most importantly, users' personal data is never shared or sent to the public cloud unless authorized by the user.”
“When such personal intelligence is placed in various smart devices, future smart devices will become a digital extension for each of us. In other words, smart devices include agents, and smart devices include large models.” Yang Yuanqing said that our “memory” will be greatly expanded, “computing power” will be greatly accelerated, and “algorithms” will be significantly improved. Personal intelligence will follow the image, be highly personalized and private, making us “if there is divine assistance”, smarter and more efficient.
At the same time, businesses will also benefit from similar enterprise intelligence. It is scattered across multiple terminal devices and infrastructure of the enterprise, and will be able to perform learning and reasoning on large amounts of enterprise data, ensure information security, support enterprise operation decisions, improve management efficiency, and improve productivity.
“The second half of artificial intelligence must be the stage from technological breakthroughs to implementation. It requires us to accumulate user feedback in actual applications, continue to improve, and continue to innovate. And the key word at this moment is 'landing. '” Yang Yuanqing said that Lenovo's vision is to take AI off the cloud, actually land, and enter thousands of households and industries.
Yang Yuanqing stressed that, on the one hand, we need to make artificial intelligence more private and personalized, from public intelligence to personal intelligence, and from technological tools to companion personal work and life assistants that highly understand individual needs and preferences. On the other hand, in the process of serving commercial entities and achieving scale and industrialization, we need it to move from a large model with high energy consumption, poor security, and only deployment in the cloud to an energy-efficient, built-in organizational decision assistant with guaranteed data security, and distribute the workload more evenly across public clouds, private clouds, edges, and terminals, thus truly promoting intelligent application and transformation in all walks of life.” We want to promote the inclusiveness, impartiality, and inclusiveness of artificial intelligence.”
The implementation of hybrid artificial intelligence requires three pillars: smart devices, intelligent infrastructure, intelligent solutions and services. Yang Yuanqing explained it from the two dimensions of an individual and a company. He said that for individual users, smart devices with built-in personal intelligence are carriers of artificial intelligence, and promoting the use of such smart devices is the most direct and convenient way to popularize artificial intelligence. Personal intelligence is already a standard part of the device's factory settings.” Lenovo is the manufacturer in the best position to achieve this.”
Yang Yuanqing pointed out that this is mainly because Lenovo is not only the world's number one PC manufacturer, but also a leading tablet and smartphone manufacturer. At the product design stage, it can use self-developed model compression technology to build personal intelligence devices into factory smart devices, making the device a platform equipped with artificial intelligence applications.
As far as enterprise users are concerned, Yang Yuanqing believes that the implementation of artificial intelligence must rely on a multi-level hybrid intelligent infrastructure that includes “end-edge-cloud-network-intelligence”, and this kind of technical architecture is the new IT technology architecture that Lenovo Group is working hard to create. From intelligent storage to artificial intelligence at the edge, from data centers to private clouds, public clouds, and hybrid clouds, Lenovo is committed to building the best infrastructure — broad enough to support massive data flows; powerful enough to complete the most complex computational tasks; sensitive enough to process data closest to data generation; and environmentally friendly enough to save energy and reduce carbon footprint.” Yang Yuanqing said.
The design, deployment, management and maintenance of hybrid intelligent infrastructure is more complex than previous infrastructure, so it requires more comprehensive system service capabilities and tailored solutions that meet customer needs. Moreover, not only that, but for complex data in different industries and types of enterprises, how to learn and reason from it by cleaning, organizing, and using appropriate algorithm models to generate intelligence in every aspect of enterprise operation. Such intelligent solutions will become a popular new IT application in all walks of life.
Yang Yuanqing said that to this end, Lenovo has established an artificial intelligence professional service team to help enterprises plan and build intelligent systems while continuously summarizing best practice application solutions in various industries, and provide comprehensive support for enterprise decisions, so that enterprise customers can maximize the efficiency of operations and decision-making while ensuring data security.
At the meeting, Yang Yuanqing also expressed his views on the new quality of productivity currently being hotly discussed in society. He believes that hybrid artificial intelligence represents a new quality of productivity, and it will greatly accelerate the intelligent transformation of all walks of life. The technology industry must seize this once-in-a-century growth opportunity, establish ecological alliances, form industry partnerships, open up innovation, and seek common development.
“2024 marks the 40th anniversary of Lenovo's founding. As we enter a year of uncertainty, our mission is crystal clear.” Yang Yuanqing firmly stated that Lenovo will continue to innovate independently, accelerate transformation, create a new decade with the theme of artificial intelligence, and build a beautiful future of sustainable development that “fills the world with AI and love”.