作者：周源/华尔街见闻，发自西雅图

台积电用远超市场预期的第三季度财报业绩，回应了市场最近对AI需求的疑虑。

在此之前，联想集团董事长兼CEO杨元庆于北美西部夏令时间10月15日，在西雅图举行的联想Tech World 2024上，也旗帜鲜明地表示，“我们相信人工智能不是一个转瞬即逝的趋势，也不是一个膨胀的泡沫。”

联想集团将混合式人工智能作为AI未来的发展方向，包括私有云和公共云、个人和企业解决方案的无缝、安全集成。

同时，联想集团公布了下一阶段Smarter AI for All愿景，并展示了全面的人工智能解决方案、服务和设备组合，为全球千行百业和千家万户带来了转型和切实的投资回报。

On October 15, lenovo group released a number of key technologies and products to support the above goals.

For example, launched the enterprise-oriented lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage; the new generation of lenovo Neptune liquid-cooled servers; the latest ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 Aura Edition AI PC, lenovo AI Now, lenovo Learning Zone (AI Learning) software platform, and more.

More importantly, lenovo has built a comprehensive open ecosystem, including CEOs from six top global technology companies such as nvidia and AMD, participating in the lenovo Tech World 2024 conference in various forms and showcasing a series of collaborative achievements with lenovo.

Leader: Hybrid AI Vision

If taiwan semiconductor is the upstream provider of equipment manufacturing technology for AI, then at the lenovo Tech World 2024 event on October 15, nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, AMD Chairman and CEO Lisa Su, and intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who are responsible for core equipment design and development for AI devices, are in the midstream of AI technology. As the total integrator, lenovo group is responsible for the crucial task of integrating and implementing the technology from mid to upstream in the AI field.

In other words, lenovo group has built a bridge for AI technology and the supply and demand between individuals/companies, as well as value realization.

In fact, this is equivalent to lenovo group aggregating various sizes of software and hardware technology companies in the AI midstream, forming an open super ecosystem, devising various AI solutions, services, and device combinations to enable global industries and households to achieve transformation, tangible return on investment, and improve personal work efficiency and quality of life.

Yang Yuanqing told Wall Street News, "Our choice criteria for ecological partners are not limited to giants, but also include technology companies of varying scales that can provide valuable support for lenovo to realize AI services."

On October 15, Wall Street News noticed that in addition to the leaders of Nvidia, AMD, and Intel personally attending the event, Qualcomm CEO and President Cristiano Amon, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, Meta founder and CEO Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, and other leaders of technology giants participated in Lenovo Tech World 2024 in the form of video speeches. There were also a considerable number of leaders from various technology companies of different sizes present at Lenovo Tech World 2024 and delivering speeches.

Since the 2023 Lenovo Tech World Conference, what has Lenovo Group been up to?

"Building on the announcement at the 2023 Tech World Conference, Lenovo has been actively providing our vision of mixed artificial intelligence to global customers and partners," said Yang Yuanqing. "We have seen that artificial intelligence is improving personal quality of life, bringing higher productivity to businesses, and Lenovo is making this paradigm shift faster, more accessible, more interconnected, and more sustainable."

According to Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo Group's overall strategy for AI is to "combine modularity and customization to quickly respond to customer needs while tailoring our solutions to them."

Dr. Tolga Kurtoglu, CTO of Lenovo Group, stated, "Our vision of Smarter AI for All is becoming a reality, and our key strength lies in integrating artificial intelligence into a wide range of products, from intelligent devices to more efficient server architectures. Lenovo also continues to work tirelessly with partners on scientifically rigorous exploration, enabling us to define the future of AI."

Nvidia: Lenovo's servers are its good brothers

As Nvidia provides data transmission speed channels, device modules for training and inference in AI technology, it has attracted much attention and become the focus company of this round of AI technology, as well as the main driver of the recent surge in US stocks.

Jensen Huang said, "Speed is sustainability, speed is performance, speed is energy efficiency."

When performance doubles or triples at a rate - 'to know this is the annual growth - we can effectively reduce the cost, workload, and energy consumption of AI, while also enhancing the revenue-generating capabilities of AI.' Huang Renxun believes, 'Unlike all data centers storing files, these data centers are AI factories that produce tokens. You would want the tokens to be produced at the highest possible speed - these tokens are actually artificial intelligence - you would want them to be produced as fast as possible.'

For a key AI technology company like this, it is very clear about Lenovo Group's position in its entire AI technology system, hence the two companies' technical cooperation is becoming increasingly close.

The result of the cooperation between these two companies this year is the launch of the new generation AI server Think System SC777 by Lenovo Group. This server adopts Lenovo's sixth-generation Neptune liquid cooling system technology, integrates NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GB200 AI acceleration card, uses 100% water-cooling design, and does not require any fans or dedicated data center air conditioning.

Huang Renxun commented on this, 'The efforts Lenovo has put into building high-performance computers over the years have paid off.'

In fact, from the perspective of importance, Think System SC777 is just an appetizer. The truly important technological collaboration between the two parties is the joint launch of the 'Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage Set.'

This is an end-to-end AI platform for developing and deploying AI in the new era: based on technologically superior infrastructure, including AI equipment, AI servers, storage, as well as edge computing, public and private clouds, becoming the carrier for enterprises to store, clean, and organize data.

The framework of the Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage Set includes the new Lenovo AI Library, which is a comprehensive repository of AI templates, allowing enterprises to implement AI solutions with minimal complexity, covering multiple industries and business functions, including marketing, IT operations, product development, and customer service.

Data algorithms and accelerated computing power collectively drive enterprise AI implementation, optimizing processes, making better decisions, and increasing productivity.

Among all these elements, services play an important role - managing the full lifecycle of infrastructure including design, deployment, expansion, and maintenance, enhancing data analysis and governance capabilities, providing consultation and optimization for ai models, and expanding the ai software ecosystem for customers.

Building on the concept of a hybrid ai factory, Lenovo also offers the Lenovo ai app library. Wall Street understands that Lenovo Group's strategic approach to the 'hybrid ai advantage set' combines modular and customized elements to quickly respond to customer needs and tailor solutions for them.

All these areas together form the complete system of the 'hybrid ai advantage set' resulting from the collaboration between Lenovo and Nvidia.

At the 2023 Lenovo Tech World Conference, Lenovo Group and Nvidia announced an expanded partnership. Through the collaboration of the two companies in full-stack ai product portfolios, Lenovo Group and Nvidia's hybrid ai advantage set will be realized, bringing ai-driven computing rapidly and conveniently to anywhere.

Driving unprecedented cooperation between archenemies.

Lenovo possesses a unique advantage in providing a diverse hybrid ai ecosystem, covering the widest range of products in the market - from personal computers, smart phones, mixed reality (MR), tablets, device accessories to servers, storage, and public/private clouds.

When it comes to personal computers, the CEOs of Intel and AMD also attended the Lenovo Tech World 2024 Conference and made a rare joint statement affirming that they will shake hands and establish a new x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group to reshape the future of x86.

Kissinger described this collaboration with AMD as 'unprecedented, a first-time partnership.'

It is worth noting that Lenovo Group is also the founding company of this consulting group. Although not officially confirmed by Lenovo Group, with the personal presence of Henry Kissinger and Su Zifeng, jointly announcing the cooperation, it is not difficult to imagine that Lenovo is likely the backstage driver of this collaboration.

In addition to Lenovo, Intel, and AMD, the members of the x86 Ecosystem Consulting Group also include Tim Sweeney, Broadcom, VMware, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat.

In the AI section of personal computers, Lenovo Group has launched the world's first personal AI smart agent aimed at the global market - Lenovo AI Now. This is a personal AI smart agent embedded in PCs.

Yang Yuanqing described what a personal AI smart agent is: using natural interaction to understand user intent, extracting relevant information from the user's personal knowledge base on the device, breaking down tasks, providing answers, and devising execution plans.

"More importantly, it is connected to an open ecosystem, supported by heterogeneous computing, and ensures privacy and data security." Yang Yuanqing said, "Ultimately, it will become your personal artificial intelligence twin."

Kissinger believes, "AI devices are fundamentally changing the cost economics of artificial intelligence. I don't need to go somewhere to use AI, it's on my device (AI PC). I don't need to store my valuable data in some cloud, it's on my device. I don't need network costs, it's on my device."

In order to make AI accessible, PC devices must be equipped with a heterogeneous computing chip, a combination of CPU, GPU, and NPU, also known as "XPU."

Lenovo Group has chosen Intel and AMD to provide this chip.

The collaboration with Intel is Lenovo's launch of the Aura Edition personal computer - a series of high-end AI-enhanced laptops jointly developed by both parties, released by Lenovo at IFA 2024.

Aura Edition features 3 exclusive key functions: the main one being Smart Share for intelligent sharing.

Users only need to connect their smart phone to the computer to instantly share and edit without switching between different ecosystems or complex steps. This series of laptops also feature Smart Modes and Smart Care, adapting to various usage scenarios, guiding users in self-diagnosis, and providing real-time agent support.

If it wasn't for Kissinger's exaggeration, then the Aura Edition is definitely not the assembly product of the past.

"Aura Edition is not only our joint innovation, but also our joint concept." Kissinger said, "Can the x86 architecture have outstanding battery life? Now, this debate is over. Aura Edition is equipped with Core Ultra, with outstanding performance and incredible battery life."

Kissinger admits that the Aura Edition with Lenovo's AI Now built-in is defined jointly by Intel and the Lenovo Group.

In fact, the collaboration between AMD and Lenovo seems more comprehensive and in-depth compared to Lenovo's collaboration with Intel only on personal PCs. Su Zifeng said, "Through our collaboration with Lenovo, we have truly built a comprehensive solution from ThinkPad (AI PC), to ThinkSystem (AI servers), to ThinkStation (AI workstations, divided into C, S, and P series)."

For example, one of the collaboration results just released by AMD and Lenovo: the joint launch of the 5th generation of AMD EPYC™ processors. These are CPUs specifically designed for cloud computing, enterprise applications, and artificial intelligence, mainly used in data centers.

Su Zifeng believes that AMD's mission is to provide computing power for generative AI – a direction that Su Zifeng's relative, Huang Renxun, is also working hard towards.

According to Su Zifeng, AMD's latest released Instinct MI325X AI accelerator card will be shipped at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024, and will supply Lenovo Group in the first quarter of 2025.

What is open? WoA, which can be both an enemy and a friend.

Intel and Lenovo Group are strategic deep cooperation partners, hence they can jointly define important AI PC products – it is worth mentioning that some AI PC products launched by Lenovo are equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite CPU (based on ARM architecture) – but Lenovo's open ecosystem also includes more partner companies, such as Microsoft.

Yang Yuanqing said, "We are collaborating with Microsoft to develop Copilot+PC to add more artificial intelligence features to Lenovo's AI PC. These features include real-time audio translation with Live Captions, as well as Windows Studio Effects that automatically improve brightness and eliminate noise during video calls."

Wall Street News noted that Qualcomm's CEO An Mong sent a congratulatory video, not personally present. Indeed, the x86 ecosystem advisory group formed by Lenovo, Intel, and AMD might make Qualcomm feel awkward.

Microsoft may also feel awkward, even though Lenovo Tech World 2024 was held in Microsoft's hometown of Seattle, Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella did not attend in person, like Qualcomm's An Mong, participating via video.

Microsoft's embarrassment may stem from "betraying" its long-term partner, Intel, who jointly built the longest-running tech alliance in the industry – Wintel's core member – as Microsoft surprisingly partnered with Qualcomm to introduce the Windows on Arm (WoA) system to explore the AI PC market.

Qualcomm has entered the field of AI PCs with CPUs based on the ARM architecture. Its processors based on the ARM architecture have already caught up with x86 in terms of performance, with low power consumption being a core technology point of the ARM architecture.

Of course, there are intricate and complex interests among modern technology giants. Although Qualcomm and Microsoft belong to the ARM camp, Lenovo's ecosystem is open, hence Microsoft and Qualcomm remain members of Lenovo's global ecosystem partners.

Satya Nadella said, 'We are collaborating to integrate the content security features of Azure AI into Lenovo's personal AI intelligent system to help detect and intercept potential risks, threats, and quality issues. We are also excited about the progress of the Copilot+ PCs project, including the brand-new AI experience just released this month.'

Without being present on the scene, Wall Street See would not have fully understood the extent of the cooperation between Lenovo Group and Meta company.

According to Yang Yuanqing, Meta is a 'super important' partner of Lenovo Group in the fields of spatial computing, artificial intelligence, and mixed reality.

Lenovo has just launched AI Now. Mark Zuckerberg revealed that AI Now is built on Meta's Llama model, thus 'truly transforming the PC into a more practical and personalized intelligent device. This is also why we have open-sourced Llama, so that companies like Lenovo can fine-tune large language models to optimize their performance in specific usage scenarios.'

Open source is currently the most cost-effective, customizable, reliable, and performance-optimized choice.

Zuckerberg announced that Lenovo's PCs are compatible with Meta's first consumer-grade VR device, Oculus Rift, 'We have collaborated to build its next-generation product Oculus Rift S.'

In addition, Lenovo also plans to launch a mixed reality headset with Meta Horizon OS, which will also be used in Meta's Meta Quest headset.

The collaboration between Meta and Lenovo is not limited to the hardware level, but also includes software: In addition to planning to launch the Lenovo MR headset with Meta Horizon OS, the two sides have jointly developed a 2D application.

This application will soon be available on the Meta Horizon store, allowing users to use Motorola phones in Quest without removing the headset. This means that users can interact with any application on their phone in a larger virtual screen.