Lenovo Group Ltd. is targeting artificial intelligence with the largest-ever refresh of its data storage portfolio, announcing 21 new AI-optimized storage systems and infrastructure appliances for enterprise data centers.

Announced today, the expanded portfolio fills the full spectrum of storage solutions, with new storage arrays, software-defined storage systems and virtualization offerings that have been crafted to tame the complexity of AI data operations and support real-time reasoning applications.

The new lineup spans both Lenovo’s ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile server models. The company promises a substantial performance boost to speed up AI inference, along with new features to simplify deployment and consolidate AI workloads, while reducing the total cost of ownership for AI applications, the company said.

For instance, the new Lenovo ThinkAgile SDI V4 series encompasses a range of “full-stack, turnkey solutions” that aim to simplify AI infrastructure overheads and provide accelerated compute for data-driven reasoning applications. The company said testing shows its new servers can boost large language model inference performance by up to 2.4 times compared to its previous generation storage arrays.

There’s also a new generation of Lenovo ThinkSystems Storage Arrays, which provide a three-fold performance boost to accelerate actionable data-based insights for business operations. According to Lenovo, they also offer 97% greater energy savings and a 99% density improvement over its existing ThinkSystems arrays, ensuring a lower TCO for AI applications.

Lenovo describes the new ThinkAgile and ThinkSystems servers as “AI-ready infrastructure” suitable both for enterprises that are just getting started with their AI implementations, and also for those with existing AI workloads. They’re “purpose-built” to support any kind of task relating to AI, chiefly inference, but also fine-tuning and retrieval-augmented generation, as well as standard operations including databases, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, hybrid cloud, backup and archives.

NAND Research Inc. analyst Steve McDowell said the performance boost in the new ThinkAgile and ThinkSystems arrays largely stem from the use of current-generation Xeon processors, bringing them in line with competing storage systems from rivals such as Dell Technologies Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. He also praised Lenovo for shrinking the overall density of the new servers.

“Shrinking the footprint from the current generation’s 8U rack footprint to 2U gives Lenovo a tremendous power and density story,” McDowell said. “That’s a 75% improvement in density, and it also delivers a huge improvement in power consumption. These days, every data center is feeling the power crunch, so this level of consolidation is a big win for Lenovo.”

Hyperconverged infrastructure

Beyond these standard arrays, the company also unveiled a series of Lenovo ThinkAgile and ThinkSystem hybrid cloud virtualization systems, designed to provide flexible, independent scaling of compute and storage. These are aimed at enterprises that want to capitalize on AI while simultaneously optimizing virtualization. They include the all-new Lenovo ThinkAgile Converged Solution for VMware, which combines the enterprise-class features of the ThinkAgile VX Series with the robust data-management capabilities of the ThinkSystem DG Series storage arrays in a single package.

For high-performance AI reasoning applications, Lenovo’s new ThinkAgile HX Series GPT-in-a-Box solution may get some attention. It’s said to be the industry’s first liquid-cooled hyperconverged infrastructure appliance, built in partnership with Nutanix Inc. and designed for turnkey AI inference workloads, powered by Lenovo’s proprietary Neptune liquid cooling technology. Capable of supporting distributed applications from the network edge to the cloud, it offers energy savings of up to 25% compared with earlier generation models.

Lenovo adds that it supports 2.6 times faster transactional processing and 1.4 times faster input/output operations per second than earlier models, despite being squeezed into a much smaller form factor that provides 1.4 times better density.

“The hardware isn’t new, as the HX series is based on Lenovo’s existing liquid-cooled ThinkSystems servers that were updated in September, but the bundling of its Neptune liquid-cooled servers with Nutanix’s HCI and GPT-in-a-Box provides a nice option for power-constrained IT organizations when deploying turnkey AI applications,” McDowell said.

To help customers get up and running with its new servers and appliances, Lenovo is also offering new “AI starter kits,” which provide a “validated, flexible and easy on-ramp” for AI inference and RAG workloads.

All of the new systems come with integrated data security and resiliency features such as tamper-proof snapshots and software-based encryption to reduce operational risk and protect sensitive information. They also feature AI-powered autonomous ransomware protection, which uses machine learning models to detect and mitigate attacks. Lenovo’s XCLarity systems management software is there to simplify set-up, management, optimize performance and streamline communication.

McDowell thinks the refreshed storage systems will put Lenovo on a much more competitive footing versus its rivals, and it will likely become even more compelling once it closes on its pending acquisition of Infinidat Ltd. later in the year.

“Lenovo has a strong entry-level and mid-range server story, and its higher-end systems will become much more powerful with Infinidat’s technology,” the analyst said. “I like the timing of this announcement, as we’re going to see a slew of new storage offerings in the next 60 days at Dell Tech World, Pure Storage Accelerate and HPE Discover. So Lenovo is making a strong move by getting ahead of those rivals, and this should help to keep it relevant as those announcements happen.”

Scott Tease, vice president and general manager of Lenovo’s Infrastructure Solutions Product Group, said the new server systems address questions around data sovereignty, compliance and availability, all of which are critical for AI applications.

“Lenovo helps customers achieve faster time to value no matter where they are on their IT modernization journey with turnkey AI solutions that mitigate risk and simplify deployment,” he said. “The new Lenovo Data Storage Solutions help businesses harness AI’s transformative power with a data-driven strategy that ensures scalability, interoperability, and tangible business outcomes powered by trusted infrastructure.”

Photo: Lenovo