A longtime computing manufacturer maintaining an international presence for decades, Lenovo Group Ltd has never embraced the “legacy” moniker. While many traditional technology companies dove headfirst into launching solutions for customer modernization across the board, Lenovo methodically worked its way into enterprise information technology through strategic partnerships and acquisitions that have enabled it to remain agile and innovate toward the next frontier of data processing — artificial intelligence at the edge of computing networks. With a mobile device and server business to maintain, how does Lenovo plan to deliver on its goal of intelligent customer transformation as a full data center business?

Looking to answer these and other questions, SiliconANGLE is at Lenovo Transform 2.0 2018, currently underway in New York City, with exclusive commentary and interviews from our roving news desk, theCUBE. TheCUBE’s coverage begins Thursday, September 13, at 11 a.m. ET, and ends on September 13 at 4 p.m. ET. (* Disclosure below.)

The artificial intelligence industry is growing exponentially, as businesses require large scale to automate increasingly high-volume data processes. Research from the artificial intelligence market forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 37 percent over the next eight years, creating a $190.61-billion market for the developing technology by 2025.

The market for personal computers has seen a steady drop over the past few years, with a global shipment decline of 2.8 percent since 2016, marking a sixth consecutive year of annual declines. Lenovo saw profits decrease last year with the market downturn in PC consumption, but it is currently seeing a steady upswing with 19-percent revenue growth in Q1 2018 due to the refocusing of its offerings for a digitally transforming market.

The company’s acquisition of IBM’s x86 server in 2014 left Lenovo positioned well for the enterprise server ecosystem and more agile than competitors like Dell EMC or Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. “They don’t have this big structure that they have to overcome,” said Stu Miniman, an analyst with Wikibon (owned by the same company as SiliconANGLE).

This flexibility allowed Lenovo the freedom to partner in building enterprise server solutions and also explore new avenues in data processing. While Lenovo may have gained its reputation through the PC business, the company is working to leverage its background in infrastructure and servers toward a full data center that facilitates a simpler path to cloud and the internet of things. Lenovo’s 2017 Transform event saw the launch of data center product ThinkSystem and software-defined hyperconverged infrastructure appliance ThinkAgile, as well as the rollout of its refreshed data center strategy.

Since then, Lenovo has further developed its storage and networking portfolio through partnerships with Nutanix, IBM and Red Hat. The company has also expanded its offerings to include several new artificial intelligence products, including the simplified management solution Lenovo Intelligent Computing Orchestration (or LiCO) and the Lenovo Smart Display, the first available Android Things device. The company plans to invest $1.2 billion in the research and development of AI in India.

As the market is inundated with complexities around virtualization and new data protocols, Lenovo remains devoted to simplifying by transforming itself into an end-to-end solutions provider for the modern data center infrastructure. How will the company carry out its mission of being “the most trusted data center partner”  and continue “empowering customers and solving humanity’s challenges?” All this and more will be explored at this year’s Lenovo Transform 2.0.

Keynote speakers at Lenovo Transform 2.0 include Yuanqing Yang, chief executive officer of Lenovo; Kirk Skaugen, executive vice president of Lenovo and president of the Data Center Group; and Christian Teismann, senior vice president of worldwide commercial business at Lenovo.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch all of theCUBE interviews that will be taking place at Lenovo Transform 2.0, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s event on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE’s dedicated website and Ustream

All of theCUBE’s exclusive interviews from Lenovo Transform 2.0 2018 will be available on theCUBE’s dedicated website.

You can also watch all the interviews on the dedicated Ustream channel.

Watch on the SiliconANGLE YouTube channel

All of theCUBE interviews from Lenovo Transform 2.0, which runs September 13, 2018, will also be loaded onto SiliconANGLE’s dedicated YouTube channel.

Cubecasts

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on both SoundCloud and iTunes, which you can enjoy while on the go.

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE at Lenovo Transform 2.0

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE include Lenovo Transform 2.0 keynote speaker Kirk Skaugen.

TheCUBE’s lineup also includes Lenovo executives Melissa Massa, executive director of Data Center Group hyperscale sales; Rod Lappin, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing, Data Center Group; Madhu Matta, vice president and general manager of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence; Laura Laltrello, vice president of Data Center Group services; Bev Crair, vice president of Data Center Group product development and quality; and Peter Hortensius, senior vice president and chief technology officer.

TheCUBE will also speak with Dr. Daniel Gruner, chief technology officer of the SciNet High Performance Computing Consortium, and Jake Smith, director of data center solutions and technologies at Intel.

(* Disclosure: Some segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE are sponsored. Sponsors have no editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Image: Courtesy of Lenovo