Lenovo, the renowned global technology giant, is gearing up to significantly enhance its presence in India, with a strong emphasis on the design, manufacturing, and export of artificial intelligence (AI) servers for international markets. The company envisions India as a pivotal hub within its global value chain, capitalising on the country’s engineering expertise, manufacturing strengths, and the burgeoning AI ecosystem.
In an interview with the news agency PTI during CES 2026, Scott Tease, Vice President and General Manager of Lenovo’s Infrastructure Solutions Group, shared the company’s ambitious long-term vision for India in the realm of AI hardware.
Tease revealed that Lenovo will leverage its development lab in Bengaluru to design AI server systems, focusing on one- and two-socket servers that are anticipated to form the backbone of future AI workloads. Once the design and engineering phases are complete, these systems will be manufactured at Lenovo’s facility in Pondicherry.
These servers are set to serve both domestic needs and international markets, marking a significant transition for India from being predominantly a consumption market to becoming a vital export hub for Lenovo’s infrastructure products.
Tease emphasised that while the company’s immediate focus is “India for India,” its previous successes in manufacturing smartphones and PCs in the country have instilled confidence in scaling server production for global clients from India.
Lenovo India has been selected as one of the beneficiaries under the government’s ₹17,000-crore production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for IT hardware. This initiative aims to bolster domestic manufacturing and lessen reliance on imports, especially for high-value technology products like servers and data centre equipment.
The company is optimistic that India’s geographic advantages, skilled workforce, and evolving manufacturing ecosystem position it well for advanced infrastructure production.
Addressing the challenges posed by the high costs associated with large-scale data centres, Tease pointed out that a hybrid AI model could make advanced AI technologies more accessible for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India.
He explained that while training AI models typically demands substantial computing resources, this process can be outsourced to cloud providers or GPU-as-a-service platforms available in India. Once the models are trained, inference can be executed on much lighter hardware, including laptops and edge devices.
This strategy significantly reduces costs and energy consumption, enabling MSMEs to implement practical AI solutions without hefty capital investments.
Tease commended the Indian government’s initiative on “Sovereign AI,” which focuses on building domestic computing capacity and minimising reliance on foreign infrastructure. He noted that the substantial domestic demand in India alone could propel significant growth in AI adoption.
He also highlighted the increasing presence of GPU-as-a-service providers and hosted AI platforms catering to both Indian and global clients, all supported by a regulatory environment conducive to AI development.
On the topic of environmental sustainability, Tease remarked that the AI industry must evolve beyond traditional air-cooled data centres, which can inflate operational costs by nearly 40%. Lenovo is advocating for liquid cooling technologies, such as its Neptune platform, which can cut energy consumption by about 40% and allow for the reuse of waste heat.
Looking ahead to 2030, Tease underscored that workforce readiness—not merely access to silicon or energy—will be the defining factor in the AI landscape. He asserted that nations and organisations that empower their workforce to effectively adopt and engage with AI will emerge as the long-term leaders in this transformative era.