At this stage we don’t need to recount the influence that artificial intelligence (AI) is having across many industries of late, as the evidence is undeniable. All of the big tech players worked to have solutions ready to go to market in 2023, and now in 2024 it has seemingly become the turn of hardware manufacturers to debut AI-ready devices.

These are not just devices that have the necessary silicon and computing power to handle AI-related tasks and operations, but also boast some sort of AI-enabled feature that is of benefit for the end user.

In the case of many laptop makers of late, that has included having a suite of AI-focused applications, as well as the processing power to assist developers in creating new ones.

As a market leader in the laptop segment, we recently spoke with Lenovo Southern Africa GM, Yugen Naidoo (pictured below), to unpack some of the new hardware that the company recently revealed at MWC 24, as well as get his thoughts on what AI-ready means, along with what his company’s goals are for this burgeoning vertical.

“I think AI has been the talk of the town for many, many years, but what we’re seeing now is what Lenovo has invested close to a billion dollars (US) into starting the next phase of artificial intelligence. That excites us, as we have a three-pronged strategy – smarter devices, smarter infrastructure, and smarter solutions – all of which will be driven by the next phase of artificial intelligence,” he explained.

“Why it’s so important is because Lenovo is investing in R&D for 12 000 employees over at three-year period, so we are definitely taking AI very seriously, and we’ve put a stake in the ground that we will lead the market globally on AI,” stated Naidoo emphatically.

Unpacking how the company plans to do so, outside of the aforementioned investments, he noted that consumers will be seeing a lot of technology down the line.

“We speak about the CPU, we speak about the GPU, but with AI-ready PCs there is something called an NPU, so the machine learning will be done on the product to assist with latency and improve on productivity and efficiency,” he outlined.

“There is a massive push from the company to lead on AI,” stressed Naidoo.

As for what types of devices are set to brought into South Africa, the GM highlighted that there is already a go-live date for AI PC locally, with SA falling into the larger Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.

“We’re actually going to kick off in Saudi (Arabia) and the Gulf as a starting point, and they’re talking about shipments in the second half of the year for now. From a South African standpoint when it comes to AI-ready PC, we want to bring it to mainstream, because what researchers like Canalys are saying, is that by 2026, 50 percent of new devices shipped will be AI-ready. So we will be pushing from the second half of the year locally,” Naidoo confirmed.

With competitors likely eyeing similar goals and ambitions thanks to the shipping of more AI-ready PCs and devices in 2024, the GM also unpacked what the Lenovo vision of AI-ready is, and how that may different from another OEM.

Here he pointed to the role Microsoft Copilot will play when it comes to offering generative AI features, but also noted that Lenovo’s offerings will be distinguished around what functionality happens natively.

“We will lead, and our PCs will have the NPU embedded on the device, and this will quantify whether your device is AI-ready or not. What the competitors are doing, I cannot speak to that, but we are working very closely with Microsoft, Intel, and AMD to make sure that the products that we bring to market will be focused on the premium sector in getting that off the ground and create the next phase of AI,” he continued.

2024 is therefore shaping up as a crucial year for Lenovo, which not only wants to bring more AI-ready PCs to market, but also look to leverage the new technology as a way to solidify its place as the leading player in terms of laptops in several regions across the globe, including SA.

With competitors aiming to do the same, it will be interesting to see what the coming quarters yield for the PC industry, and whether Lenovo will remain in top spot.