CANALYS CHANNELS FORUM, PERTH, AUSTRALIA: Lenovo outlined plans to leverage artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and VR to develop more than just new devices.

Amar Babu, COO of Lenovo Asia Pacific and head of its PC and smart devices group in the region (pictured), said the company is investing heavily to build AI, AR and VR to create new business solutions around the technologies.

“It’s really exciting as to what possibilities these can bring,” he said: “You’ve heard a lot about how these technologies are what we should be looking at as we transform not just the technology ourselves but transform the business in how we provide services to customers.”

The company wants to grow its mobile business even further: for the past two years Lenovo sold more phones than PCs, he said.

Shared space
Babu also mentioned opportunities in the shared workspace area, which has taken off lately, and is developing products enabling people to work in a collaborative environment in a very easy way.

Lenovo recently introduced a smart hub allowing users to start a conference call with the push of a button, and build strong workplace collaboration across different offices and platforms, he noted.

“If you expand on this and move to the wide gamut of what’s being called the limitless landscape, it’s more about a complete transformation.”