Yang Yuanqing: Promote innovation with innovation, improve quality with intelligence, and promote the leapfrogging of intelligent manufacturing.

On September 20, the 2024 World Manufacturing Conference with the theme "Creating a Better World with Wisdom" opened in Hefei. Yang Yuanqing, Chairman and CEO of LENOVO GROUP, delivered a keynote speech entitled "Seizing the Opportunities of the New Round of AI Revolution and Promoting the Intelligent Transformation of Manufacturing" at the opening ceremony. He proposed utilizing the engine of artificial intelligence to nurture new production forces, promoting high-quality development of the manufacturing industry through innovation and intelligence. Yang Yuanqing stated that promoting innovation means accelerating the cultivation of new AI products and business models to create new growth opportunities for the manufacturing industry. For example, diverse AI terminal devices have the potential to form new industrial ecosystems and bring about new forms of industrial agglomeration, harboring huge opportunities. Lenovo led the way by introducing a new generation of AI PC personalized computers in May, which will stimulate a significant amount of new demand. Promoting quality through intelligence involves leveraging AI technology for intelligent and green transformation, unlocking dividends of higher efficiency, quality, and sustainable development. He cited Lenovo's intelligent supply chain management practices as an example of the effects of promoting quality through intelligence. Lenovo's intelligent supply chain operations management system supported by the "end-edge-cloud-network-intelligence" technology architecture has achieved significant quality and efficiency improvements in intelligent demand forecasting, intelligent production scheduling, intelligent manufacturing, intelligent production line maintenance, intelligent quality inspection, intelligent logistics, and intelligent energy consumption management. For example, Lenovo's Legend manufacturing facility in Hefei processes over 5,000 orders daily, with over 80% being personalized orders of less than 5 units, involving approximately 260 million materials calculated daily. Previously, manual scheduling took around 6 hours per day, but with intelligence, the scheduling time has been reduced to 1.5 minutes per day, increasing production by 23%. Yang Yuanqing concluded by emphasizing the rapid development of generative AI and large model technologies over the past year, serving as catalysts for the intelligent transformation of manufacturing enterprises. Manufacturing companies must seize the opportunities of the new AI revolution, deeply integrating new technologies into various manufacturing scenarios, and fostering new products, business models, and modes to generate efficiency, innovation, and low-carbon dividends, laying the necessary path for the widespread adoption and benefit of artificial intelligence. Yang Yuanqing also mentioned that Lenovo is part of the "Anhui Army" in the manufacturing industry. In 2011, Lenovo invested in and built the world's largest intelligent device research and manufacturing base - Legend Technology in Hefei. As of now, Legend's industrial output value has exceeded 100 billion yuan for four consecutive years. In 2023, Legend Technology achieved a revenue of 106.5 billion yuan, with an annual export volume of 5.862 billion US dollars, ranking as Anhui's largest import and export enterprise for nine consecutive years. With an advanced intelligent management system, Legend was selected as a global benchmark for intelligent manufacturing by the World Economic Forum in January 2023 - the "Global Lighthouse Factory." As a leading player in the industrial chain, Legend has also created a "4-hour industrial circle" around Hefei, driving employment for nearly 100,000 people.