One of the main computer manufacturers, Lenovo, presented this year at its annual TechWorld conference many news about what it is about to launch and – guess what – artificial intelligence is the star. The Chinese multinational, in alliance with all the major chip manufacturers, wants to bring AI inside each device. Luca Rossi, executive vice president of Lenovo and president of the smart devices division, assures that these will amaze us.
Why does AI mean new computers?
Not only the PC, but also tablets and smartphones. The world has seen that a great generative language model can do a lot of good things and increase productivity.
But is it only possible with new machines?
Making inference from data requires a large amount of computing power. Now this computing power is in the cloud and there is a sustainability problem. Every query you make in the cloud is costing a fortune in terms of energy consumption, and, obviously, emissions. There is also a privacy issue. When you ask the computer “please tell me what cake to make tomorrow”, nothing happens. But when you upload your bank account details and ask how much money you will have to save in the next year, will you feel just as comfortable? I don’t believe it.
Can’t we do that with what we already have?
You need a lot of computing power. You already have AMD and Intel models on the market with an NPU – neural processing unit, a type of chip for AI – which is a new word that we will have to get used to. The cloud will still be more powerful, but the PC will be enough to run a language model. So that’s the big innovation coming.
This already works like this in a good part of today’s new computers.
In the next two years there will be an acceleration of technology from a hardware point of view, with new PCs, smaller, lighter, faster and with longer battery life. And of course, the software will evolve too. Big companies, like Microsoft and Adobe, are creating software applications that take advantage of this NPU to do things that will leave you stunned in front of your computer. I think it will be a good reason to buy a new PC, but also to buy a new phone.
Will AI also change our phones?
In a way, at first it will be a new category. Several years ago, smartphones started as a new category and eventually killed off other phones. There are no phones anymore. There are smartphones. And the IA PC – AI PC, in English – will be a new category over time and the PC will be dead.
Is it the only trend?
What we announced with Nvidia is important. Among the highlights is our work on continued innovation with foldable technology with a prototype Motorola phone that can fold over the wrist. It’s a prototype, but it shows how advanced the research is. Last year we showed a roll-up mobile.
And a 3D monitor without glasses that works thanks to AI.
3D to me is an interesting thing because it never took off in the past for one reason only. Not because the experience was bad, but because when you have huge glasses on your face, no one is happy. So 3D TVs failed. But our monitor will triumph, because it is a very emotional experience, since you really see 3D without glasses.
How does it work?
It has a camera that looks into your eyes and the artificial intelligence algorithm assembles the images and reassembles them so that you see them in 3D. For now it has a limitation, that it can only be done for one user. Probably within three years we will present one that can cover five users at a time, because it will have 10 cameras. It’s the beauty of innovation.
Don’t you have the feeling that companies show too many things just because they can be done, without solving a real need?
Let me give you an example. I think it was in 2017 when we showed the first prototype of a folding PC. If we had had this conversation then, I would wonder if it was useful or if we were just doing it for fun. And now we have two generations on the market. We intend to introduce it to the market as long as it proves to be economically viable and benefits the user. Innovations are always created that remain in the laboratory because there is no value for the user.
Will AI change the way we work with machines?
One of the promises that the industry has not fulfilled is interaction with the machine through voice. What will change the game is the machine’s ability to understand you, even if you speak in a conversational way using all your vocabulary or saying something elaborate, not very direct, which my mother can do. And I think that will take machine voice interaction to the next level in less than two years. I think it will and will be important because suddenly you won’t need keyboards or a mouse. We are going to be very inclusive to attract more users and reduce the digital divide.
Is this a key moment in the history of technology?
AI is, in a broad sense, a revolution like the internet in the 90s, when Google was created in 1998. It is that type of impact that the progress of this technology will have on the progress of society.
