CES 2026: Lenovo Tech World – Lenovo Revolutionizes Real-Time Enterprise AI with New Inferencing Servers
Confirming its computing strategy with advanced server architectures, designs and partnerships
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on January 7, 2026 at 2:01 pmSummary:
- New Lenovo ThinkSystem and Lenovo ThinkEdge servers deliver robust AI Inferencing for workloads of any size, across all industries
- New solutions and software stacks built on Lenovo’s Hybrid AI Advantage enable pre-validated AI Inference deployments in real-world environments
- New Lenovo Hybrid AI Factory Services provide enterprise guidance at any stage of the AI adoption cycle
At Tech World @ CES 2026 at Sphere in Las Vegas, Lenovo announced a suite of purpose-built enterprise servers, solutions and services for AI inferencing workloads expanding the Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage portfolio.
Setting the stage for the next era of AI, Lenovo is advancing the field of inferencing and eliminating hurdles to power real-world AI use cases ranging from storefront customer transactions to advanced healthcare applications, including rapid diagnostics and treatment planning in critical care environments.
AI Inferencing marks a significant pivotal shift from training LLMs to leveraging fully trained models to analyze unseen data to make instant decisions in real-world settings. Moving from training to action turns the significant capital committed to AI into tangible business return, and invaluable competitive gain. Lenovo’s new AI Inferencing suite maximizes return, unifying and connecting an organization’s data across the cloud, data center, and edge to power AI workloads wherever they deliver the greatest output. Futurum estimates the global AI inference infrastructure market growing from $5.0 billion in 2024 to $48.8 billion by 2030, representing a six-year CAGR of 46.3%.
“Enterprises today need AI that can turn massive amounts of data into insight the moment it’s created,” said Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, EVP and president, ISG. “With Lenovo’s new inferencing-optimized infrastructure, we are giving customers that real-time advantage – transforming massive amount of data into instant, actionable intelligence that fuels stronger decisions, greater security, and faster innovation.”
Advanced Lenovo ThinkSystem and Lenovo ThinkEdge Servers
Lenovo’s new AI inferencing servers provide a range of offerings for business workloads of all sizes. Featuring state of the art GPU, memory, and networking capabilities, Lenovo’s inferencing-optimized portfolio include:
- Lenovo ThinkSystem SR675i: Powerhouse performance, AI inferencing server built to run full LLMs anywhere with massive scalability, for the largest workloads and accelerated simulation in manufacturing, critical healthcare and financial services environments
- Lenovo ThinkSystem SR650i: Accelerated AI inferencing power with high-density GPU compute, that’s scalable and easy to deploy in existing data centers
- Lenovo ThinkEdge SE455i: Super compact and built for retail, telco and industrial environments, this record-breaking server brings AI inferencing capabilities anywhere data is located, with ultra-low latency and rugged reliability – and in a climate flexible anywhere between -5°C to 55°C
With Lenovo Neptune’s leading air and liquid cooling capability to help solve the energy bottlenecks for organizations demanding top tier AI workloads performance, and Lenovo TruScale pay-as-you-go pricing model, enterprises are empowered to achieve peak performance and efficiency without compromising agility, security, or budget.
AI Solutions with Real-World Impact
Lenovo’s enterprise AI hardware is the foundation of the Lenovo Hybrid AI Factory, a validated modular framework for building and operating AI solutions at scale. As part of the broader Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage spanning infrastructure, software and services – the Factory enables organizations to achieve real-world outcomes. Lenovo Hybrid AI platforms offer one cohesive system based on new Lenovo AI Inferencing servers, storage, networking, software and orchestration unifying infrastructure, data, and management. This ensures faster time-to-market, mitigates deployment risks, and optimizes performance at the right value for organizations. New platforms bring Lenovo’s extensive AI ecosystem value to the AI Inferencing needs of enterprise organizations:
- Lenovo Hybrid AI Inferencing with Lenovo ThinkAgile HX and Nutanix AI: centralized shared inference capability allowing for maximum GPU utilization, improved performance, scalability and lower costs in a virtualized environment
- Lenovo Hybrid AI Inferencing with Red Hat AI: A scalable, enterprise-grade platform
designed for robust AI deployments. It delivers flexibility, enhanced security, and performance to support complex workloads and future growth – ideal for organizations seeking a resilient foundation for agentic AI.
- Lenovo Hybrid AI Inferencing with Canonical Ubuntu Pro: A cost-effective, streamlined solution that makes it simple to get started with AI. Perfect for rapid deployment and experimentation, it combines ease of use with essential security features for an accessible entry point into agentic AI leveraging the scalability of the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR650i
AI Inferencing Services and Solutions to Jumpstart the Adoption Process
As AI evolves, the Lenovo Hybrid AI Factory Services provide new inferencing advisory, deployment, and managed services expertise to stand up and optimize high-performance inferencing environments tailored to business and industry-specific inferencing workloads – making enterprises easily adaptable:
- Optimal server performance from day one with long-term reliability, efficiency, and scalability to start realizing ROI fast
- Reliable ongoing assistance for data center management from Lenovo Premier Support
- Flexible Lenovo TruScale Infrastructure-as-a-Service financing to help easily scale as inferencing and AI operations evolve
Lenovo’s new Hybrid AI Factory Services for inferencing are designed to make inferencing easy at every step of the journey – helping businesses accelerate adoption and maximize value. These AI Services reinforce Lenovo’s commitment to supporting the complete enterprise product lifecycle, giving organizations the ability to innovate confidently and manage mission-critical AI operations with reliability and scale.
Creating Out-Of-This-World Experiences
Lenovo’s enterprise advancements are designed for customers of all sizes – one of which is the largest spherical structure on Earth, and the site for today’s announcement. Launched at Sphere in Las Vegas during Lenovo Tech World at CES, Lenovo’s own technology supports the content creation of Sphere Studios. Hundreds of Lenovo ThinkSystem SR655 V3 servers, powered by AMD EPYC processors and Nvidia accelerated computing, are used to develop immersive content and experiences at this unique venue.
Visible from outer space, The Sphere serves as a larger-than-life example of the transformative capabilities of Lenovo’s infrastructure.
Comments
Lenovo's keynote at the Sphere in Las Vegas during CES stood out on two fronts. First, the choice of venue itself - remarkable for its scale and architectural uniqueness - set a strong visual and symbolic backdrop. Second, the breadth of announcements delivered by Yuanqing Yang, Chairman and CEO, underscored Lenovo's strategic ambitions in the AI and infrastructure markets.
As a global IT leader generating approximately $70 billion in annual revenue, Lenovo introduced a new portfolio of servers that clearly reflects sustained demand for AI inference and adjacent workloads. The launch of two ThinkSystem models, the SR675i and SR650i, alongside the ThinkEdge SE455i, directly addresses enterprise requirements for on-premises inference across multiple environments, including core data centers, edge locations, and remote offices. Notably, and as highlighted in the official press materials, these announcements did not include any reference to storage capabilities or enhancements.
Lenovo's Hybrid AI Factory strategy further reinforces this direction. It aligns with growing enterprise demand for a comprehensive AI stack capable of processing data where it resides, a necessity driven by the massive volumes involved. Security considerations also remain paramount, with enterprises increasingly favoring on-premises AI models to maintain tighter control over sensitive data. In this context, AI continues to illustrate a broader hybrid IT paradigm, alongside a renewed momentum toward on-premises computing.
The keynote also served as a platform to highlight Lenovo's ecosystem partnerships. The presence of key industry leaders, including Jensen Huang. CEO, Nvidia, Lip-Bu Tan, CEO, Intel, and Lisa Su, CEO, AMD, emphasized joint initiatives and ongoing product collaborations. However, this high-profile setting also underscored a notable omission: the absence of any update on Lenovo’s storage strategy. We recognize that the company has announced new storage products mid-December just a few weeks before this conference and we had difficulties to speak with Lenovo's storage leaders at this show.
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Historically, Lenovo has relied on an extensive network of storage partners, spanning both hardware and software, rather than promoting a strong proprietary storage portfolio. This approach, while flexible, has increasingly become a point of friction for customers and partners alike. Lenovo's dependence on third-party solutions contrasts sharply with its leadership in server design and compute innovation, creating a strategic imbalance. This gap is also reflected in analyst reports, where Lenovo's storage positioning remains underrepresented, despite the company's scale, resources, and engineering capabilities.
From a tactical standpoint, Lenovo appeared to address this issue nearly a year ago, on January 16, 2026, when it announced its intention to acquire Infinidat, thereby strengthening its position in high-end block storage. We invite our readers to check what we wrote at that time. The selection of a vendor outside Lenovo’s traditional partner ecosystem suggested a deliberate move to fill a critical gap through acquisition. Yet, despite the significance of this transaction, no mention of the pending acquisition or broader storage roadmap was made during this flagship event.
Given the prominence of CES and the scale of the audience, the lack of communication around this topic was unexpected. While further updates are anticipated in the coming months, the silence around Lenovo's storage ambitions at this conference remains a surprising missed opportunity. We're looking forward to see some Lenovo storage news with it sown offering in the coming quarters.
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