China’s Lenovo Group will start making artificial intelligence (AI) servers at its plant in southern India and open an AI server-focused R&D lab in the tech hub of Bengaluru, the electronics hardware maker said on Tuesday.
Lenovo said it aims to build 50,000 AI rack servers and 2,400 graphics processing unit (GPU) servers specifically designed for resource-heavy tasks like machine learning annually at the Puducherry-based plant.
“The servers are not only for local consumption but also for export,” Lenovo’s Asia Pacific president Amar Babu told Reuters.
He declined to disclose any investment or hiring targets for the R&D lab or the Puducherry plant, where Lenovo already makes laptops, notebooks and personal computers (PCs).
Demand for GPUs or AI chips has skyrocketed since the generative AI wave began in late 2023, boosting the fortunes of companies like Nvidia and AMD.
According to a NASSCOM-BCG report released earlier this year, AI hardware is expected to capture 12 percent of the global AI market, which will almost triple to $380 billion in 2027.
Lenovo, which derives about 47% of its revenue from non-PC businesses, follows companies like Apple, Foxconn and Dell in increasing manufacturing capacity in India to reduce their dependence on China.
India is also luring companies, including tech-focused companies, by providing manufacturing-linked incentives.
Although the AI-server manufacturing scheme is not linked to any government incentive scheme, its partnership with India’s Dixon Technologies to make PCs and Motorola phones does take advantage of such schemes, Babu said.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
