36氪_让一部分人先看到未来

Perhaps a few years later, looking back, these viewpoints will become an interesting brief history of the development of "AI + Hardware".

Text | Su Jianxun

Who is Luca Rossi?

His official position is "Executive Vice President of Lenovo Group and President of Intelligent Devices Business Group (IDG)". In a more straightforward description, Luca manages almost all consumer-level terminal products of Lenovo - including PCs, smartphones, tablet computers, and so on.

To be more straightforward, the IDG business that Luca is responsible for contributes 75% of Lenovo's revenue. According to Lenovo's latest financial results for the second quarter of the 2024/25 fiscal year: Out of the total revenue of 17.9 billion US dollars, IDG contributed 13.5 billion US dollars.

Throughout 2024, from Shanghai, China, Berlin, Germany, to Seattle/Las Vegas, USA, Luca has been almost all over the world for "AIPC".

"We expect the penetration rate of AI PCs to reach 40% - 50%, or even as high as 80%, within the next 2 - 3 years." During the CES held in Las Vegas, USA in early January, Luca Rossi said in an interview with media such as "Intelligent Emergence".

2025 is Luca's tenth year with Lenovo, and this is his crucial year.

Luca Rossi, Executive Vice President of Lenovo Group and President of Intelligent Devices Business Group (IDG); Picture taken by the author

AIPC is now Lenovo's core strategy. For Luca, he needs to lead the IDG team to find the right rhythm in technology integration and market promotion.

At CES, Lenovo showcased several innovative products, including the world's first rollable screen AI PC ThinkBook Plus Gen 6, which will go on sale in 2025, the first laptop with an under-display camera (CUD) technology, and the first tablet with local AI, the YOGA Pad Pro AI Yuanqi Edition. However, the innovation of the above-mentioned software and hardware still requires a certain amount of user education.

Lenovo's ThinkBook Plus Gen 6, with the screen size expandable from 14 inches to 16.7 inches; Picture taken by the author

In other terminal devices such as mobile phones and glasses, Motorola has maintained a quarterly growth rate of more than 30% in markets such as North America, Europe, and Latin America. What Luca needs to consider is that Motorola should seize the growth momentum in the North American and other markets, and not miss the emergence of wearable devices such as AI glasses.

"Intelligent Emergence" has sorted out the important viewpoints that Luca Rossi accepted interviews from 2024 to 2025, and classified them according to topics, forming a development context about Lenovo AIPC from technology development, product definition to reaching consumers. Maybe looking back in a few years, these viewpoints will become an interesting "AI + Hardware" development brief history:

1. AIPC is eager to take off, and the basic technology is ready:

"As a computer manufacturer, I very much welcome the competition among chip manufacturers, because it can stimulate innovation."

- Berlin, Germany 2024/9/5; IFA Exhibition

"In 2024, I think it can be said that we are ready to bring the basic technology of AI PCs to the market."

- Las Vegas, USA 2025/1/8 CES Exhibition

In 2024, it is crucial for the development of the entire AIPC. Luca particularly mentioned the iteration of key components, that is, the chips that drive AIPC.

In the technical solutions delivered by more and more chip manufacturers, the new neural processing unit (NPU) is playing a more independent role, which means that many functions or codes running on the CPU will gradually be transferred to the NPU for operation, not only reducing the load on the CPU but also reducing power consumption.

Luca mentioned that the NPU architecture manufacturers that embrace similar technologies include Qualcomm chips, Intel Lunar Lake, AMD Strix, and AMD's upcoming Kraken... In addition, there are currently about 150 software developers or independent software vendors (ISVs) writing codes and upgrading their software to be able to utilize the NPU.

2. A new round of PC replacement wave in the post-epidemic era is coming:

Over time, I think the (AIPC) price will gradually drop to the range of $700 to $1,000. In this way, the number of people who can afford it will increase, and they will buy it.

- Berlin, Germany 2024/9/5; IFA Exhibition

First of all, the life cycle of Windows 11 or Windows 10 will end in October 2025, which will inevitably bring a large number of equipment replacement needs. In addition, there are 400 million devices purchased during the epidemic, and these devices have been used for 4 to 5 years and have reached the time point for replacement.

- Las Vegas, USA 2025/1/8 CES Exhibition

The PC market in 2024 is indeed relatively stable. The final market data has not been fully counted, but it is probably around plus or minus 1%, basically the same. Therefore, from this point of view, you can agree with Huang Renxun's statement that the market has indeed not grown this year.

Regarding the market performance of AIPC in 2024, Luca frankly admitted that the past year was not a year of explosive sales, "(The increase) is probably around plus or minus 1%."

However, on the premise that the technology is ready, Luca believes that the market scale of AIPC will have a more significant growth from 2025 to 2026. An obvious stimulating factor is that there are 400 million devices in the market that were purchased during the epidemic, and these devices have been used for 4 to 5 years and have reached the time point for replacement.

3. In the future, AIPC can communicate with the system and App to help you complete tasks

There is no doubt that the "AI" in AIPC is the basis for the definition of this series of products. How to realize the landing of AI functions on terminal products is an important topic that Luca has discussed in the past year.

Back to the specific AI functions, Lenovo officially released a PC equipped with a Chinese AI Agent named "Xiaotian" in May 2024. Luca said at the time that "Xiaotian" was completely created by Lenovo. Currently in China, no other PC manufacturer can provide such an experience.

What can "Xiaotian" do? Luca gave an example of the usage experience of people around him: "If you ask my sister to adjust the screen brightness, she may not know how to perform a series of cumbersome operations. And one day in the future, you just need to write a sentence or directly say: Please adjust the brightness to make the screen brighter, and the AIPC will automatically execute it."

For the future interaction form of AIPC, Luca has discussed many times. He said:

If we look further into the future, the usage method of (AIPC) may also shift from the application-based to the intent-based. The application-based means that you choose an application program to do what you want to do. The intent-based is that the AI PC will automatically drive all application programs, and you will communicate with the AI PC device in your natural language.

- Shanghai, China 2024/4/18; Lenovo Innovation Technology Conference

The availability of NPU makes "Large Action Models" possible, which goes beyond the current "Large Language Models". It is no longer just communicating with the machine, but the system can communicate with various application programs and achieve your goals for you. This still sounds like science fiction today.

- Las Vegas, USA 2025/1/8 CES Exhibition

Let's give another example. In the future, an AIPC suitable for the editorial department of "Intelligent Emergence" should be like this:

When you turn on the computer to work in the early morning, the browser will automatically push important AI news at home and abroad within 24 hours, and the content has been refined; the schedule will pop up, showing the topics to be followed up and the interview arrangements, and a basic interview outline will also be generated for reference; after the interview, the system quickly generates a shorthand and key points...

4. Without the shackles of the keyboard, AI will derive new forms of devices

"If you can talk to the device, then you don't need a keyboard. You will see that every device is upgraded to an AI device, and some new form devices based on natural language interaction will also appear."

- Shanghai, China 2024/4/18; Lenovo Innovation Technology Conference

"No keyboard means that we have eliminated the biggest obstacle in device design, and the form of the device will also change, and it may become a triangle, a ring, or other forms."

- Berlin, Germany 2024/9/5; IFA Exhibition

I believe that over time, some new device forms will appear. For example, the current mobile PC has a major limitation: you need a keyboard. And if the keyboard disappears, the form of this device can be completely changed.

- Las Vegas, USA 2025/1/8 CES Exhibition

Regarding the form of future AI devices, in almost every interview in the past year, Luca has talked about a forthcoming change: getting rid of the keyboard!

In October 2024, at the Tech World in Seattle, "Intelligent Emergence" experienced several concept products that Lenovo is still developing. Their common feature is that they do not use a keyboard, but use language and body interaction to achieve product functions.

Lenovo's concept product Lenovo 3D Track Point; Picture taken by the author

In Luca's conception, as the device becomes more intelligent, every device can act as a sensor to understand the user's environmental information. For example, the device can know the room temperature or determine whether the user is moving to the left or right.

That is to say, in the future, hardware is no longer just hardware, but a data collection sensor around the user. After having these cross-terminal data, the functions of the product are no longer uniform, but more personalized functional modules are formed by AI according to the user's usage preferences/habits.

"We are already collaborating with Motorola to develop new Internet of Things (IoT) devices to achieve a complete ecosystem." Luca said, "This is a very exciting field."

5. AI will bring new vitality to all terminal devices, whether it is a mobile phone or glasses

I am proud of Motorola's progress. Although it is not a PC, mobile phones will also be deeply affected by AI. We hope to be able to increase the shipment volume by two or three times in the future.

- Seattle, USA 2024/10/16 Lenovo TechWorld

"Another thing that interests me a lot is glasses. In the long run, glasses will have great development potential. Of course, there are still many technical obstacles at present."

- Las Vegas, USA 2025/1/8 CES Exhibition

In the entire 2024, Motorola has had a quite outstanding performance globally, which is also a major reason why Luca led the IDG business to continue to grow in multiple quarters.

Luca also attributes the driving force for the growth of Motorola mobile phones to AI. "Intelligent Emergence" also saw at the scene that through the built-in AI assistant, Motorola mobile phones can achieve summary of chat communication and also support users to issue instructions through natural language. For example, users can directly say "Help me call a ride-hailing car" or "Order an iced Americano coffee", etc.

At the Lenovo Tech World in October 2024, the staff demonstrated the AI voice booking function of the Moto phone; Picture taken by the author

In the prediction of the new generation of terminals, Luca focused on AI glasses, especially in some vertical segmented scenarios, such as the production line in the factory, where Luca believes that the application scenarios of glasses will be more mature.

However, he does not think that AI glasses will be a category that explodes in a short period of time, due to problems such as battery life and heat dissipation performance. He believes that this type of product still needs a development period of 5 to 10 years.

6. To solve the privacy problem, "hybrid cloud" is the key

We have collaborated with several partners to ensure the privacy and security of AI. The most important security measure is that the data will remain on your device and will not be uploaded to the cloud.

- 2024/10/16 Seattle, USA Lenovo TechWorld

When processing low-latency requirements on edge devices, or when it comes to highly private content, users may not be willing to upload this content to any cloud, but prefer to complete it locally.

- Las Vegas, USA 2025/1/8 CES Exhibition

With more and more AI-enabled products, user data is also collected by more machines, and privacy has become an unavoidable problem.

Luca also mentioned that when users own PCs, tablets, mobile phones, watches, and even smart rings at the same time, they hope that the AI knowledge base is interconnected. Lenovo has invested a lot of funds to ensure the integrity and intercommunication of the ecosystem, and also cooperates with manufacturers such as Microsoft to develop software to protect user privacy.

For example, Lenovo's ThinkShield is a set of security software tools from the device to the cloud, which is the protective layer it provides to users. At the same time, Lenovo has also established a partnership with SentinelOne to further strengthen security management and control and join the Zero Trust Supply Chain.

In addition, for the storage and computing of user data, Luca mentioned the "hybrid cloud" solution many times. For the user's computing scenarios, some tasks need to be processed in the cloud, while some tasks need to be completed on the edge device. For example, for image processing, if it does not involve privacy issues and requires strong computing power, the cloud is obviously a more suitable choice; while some computations related to the user's personal data need to be processed on the end side.

"We believe that the future of AI PCs is not a single cloud or edge processing, but a hybrid cloud. This is the key direction we are working hard to promote, and it is also our core advantage." Luca said.