One of the oldest technology companies in the business is embracing the industry’s hottest trends. HP Inc. today announced what it says is the largest-ever portfolio of “AI PCs,” which are designed from the ground up to support new generative artificial intelligence workloads.

The new PCs were announced today in Las Vegas at HP Amplify, the company’s annual partner conference, where the company also outlined a new AI training and certification program, new managed and digital services for partners including the first AI-enabled digital experience platform, and a new lineup of printers.

The venerable personal computer maker might be one of Silicon Valley’s veterans, but the company is fully intent on remaining at the forefront of the industry’s latest advancements, saying today that it intends to “redefine productivity and collaboration in the AI and hybrid era.” To underscore its ambitions, it hosted luminaries such as Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Satya Nadella, Intel Corp. CEO Pat Gelsinger, Nvidia Corp. founder and CEO Jensen Huang, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Qualcomm Inc. CEO Cristiano Amon and Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai.

HP said there’s a clear expectation among its customer base for it to remain relevant in the era of AI. The company kicked off Amplify earlier this week by announcing the findings of its annual Work Relationship Index, which is a comprehensive study that explores enterprise employees’ relationships with work. One of the unsurprising findings of the study was that a vast majority of enterprise employees see AI as the key to unlocking better relationships at work.

The company wants to lay the groundwork for AI in the workplace, and to that end it announced a huge portfolio of AI PCs that are designed to run AI workloads locally in order to enhance productivity, power creativity and drive new user experiences.

The lineup includes a new series of HP Elite PCs, which are business laptops designed for collaboration, and Z by HP mobile workstations, which are high-powered machines built for creative and design work. The AI HP ZBook mobile workstations are said to combine the most advanced central processing units from Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. with graphics processing units built by Nvidia Corp. to power demanding workloads such as engineering and design.

Meanwhile, both the Elite and Z by HP PCs incorporate the company’s upgraded Endpoint Security Controller chip, which is designed to future-proof the machines against quantum attacks.

In addition, HP debuted the AI Creation Center, which is designed to be a comprehensive workstation solution for AI development. It incorporates the company’s Z by HP AI Studio software and Nvidia’s NGC libraries and enables data scientists to customize open-source and private AI models in a secure environment.

HP also revealed a refreshed lineup of its HP Color LaserJet printers. The HP Color LaserJet 3000 series is designed for high performance in a small footprint, powered by energy-efficient TerraJet technology to speed up printing speeds without eating up too many energy resources.

New partner programs and services

Alongside its PC lineup, HP announced a new Amplify Partner Program within its Future Ready portfolio. The program includes the industry’s first role-based AI partner training and certification program, together with a new “Growth Play” opportunity that’s tailored for AI Data Science.

In addition, the company also spoke of a new AI-enabled digital experience offering called HP Workforce Experience Platform. According to HP, it provides chief information officers with a suite of AI-enabled digital experience tools that can help them to unlock the full potential of their workforces.

It connects multiple services into a single, unified view to help CIOs capture employee sentiment, deliver persona-based recommendations to enhance PC refresh lifecycles based on workers’ usage patterns and requirements. It can also streamline hardware monitoring, help employees to automate various tasks and strengthen overall security, the company said.

Finally, HP detailed a suite of new managed service offerings for channel partners, including managed device services to streamline PC configuration and management and provide superior onsite support, monitoring and recommendations for fleet improvements. There’s also a new managed print services subscription service that enables printing from any location, and new sales toolkits designed to help partners grow their services businesses.

HP Chief Commercial Officer David McQuarrie said today’s announcements will pave the way for the company’s partners to achieve sustained growth. “HP’s Future Ready portfolio and Future Ready operations are enabling partners to capitalize on global trends, compete in the market, and win – across geographies, customer verticals, and business scale,” he said.

Photos: HP