Lenovo gears up for AI transition

CEBU, Philippines — Lenovo Philippines recently announced its active preparation for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) era and capacitate the market with AI supported devices.

"We want to be in the forefront of AI technology" said Lenovo Philippines country general manager Michael Ngan in a press conference recently.

Ngan, who was in Cebu to open Lenovo's second concept store in Cebu located in Ayala Center Cebu, said that as early as now, the consumer should be introduced already to AI technology as the future is gearing towards this direction.

Lenovo has initially launched the augmented reality device called "Star Wars Jedi Challenge", in partnership with Walt Disney.

This device signals Lenovo's serious entry to AI technology and this is the first of the products that will be introduced by the company in the near term.

The second product that is under the AI line of Lenovo is called "Mirage Solo" a

virtual reality (VR) headset, made in collaboration with Google. So far, it is the only WorldSense-powered headset in the market. At present this particular product is not yet available in the Philippines.

Ngan is also preparing the Filipino market with the soon-to-be-introduced Lenovo Smart Display device, a vertual assistant (like Siri or Alexa), but it already has a screen on it. It is a voice- controlled device with the built in Google Assistant.

"We are investing heavily on AI technologies," added Ngan.

At present though, bulk of Lenovo's business in the Philippines is still in Personal Computer (PC) and laptop.

Although its mobile product line marketed under Motorola brand is making strong penetration mostly in the high-end user segment.

Ngan said Lenovo is also active in establishing more concept stores around the country in order to make the market experience its products before deciding to buy.

There are a total of 120 Lenovo concept stores around the country, half of which are located in Luzon.

Ngan said the company is looking at establishing concept stores in major islands like Palawan, Bohol, among others.

Soon after announcing it will buy a controlling stake in the personal computer unit of Japanese information technology company Fujitsu Chinese smart devices maker Lenovo Group said it will continue to look for other buying opportunities.

The Chinese company Lenovo bought US-based IBM's PC division for $1.25 billion excluding debt in 2005, and created a PC joint venture with Tokyo-based electronics company NEC in 2011.

In 2014, it announced its acquisition and merger of American telecom brand Motorola.