The size of Lenovo’s Beijing Campus is about 66 tennis courts, that’s how big the Lenovo Beijing’s campus is.
My first time in Beijing happened because I was invited by the Lenovo APAC to visit Tech World and Innovation Tour.
Tech World is an annual global technology exhibit hosted by the Lenovo group. It’s a well-known attraction for journalists, media personnel, analysts, fans, and KOL or social influencers like myself. This particular year, Lenovo shared its grand vision of creating ‘Smarter Technology For All,’ and I’m glad I was there to witness it.
A quick history of Lenovo
Lenovo, incorporated in 1988 was born as Beijing Legend Computers in 1984. Then in 2005, it had acquired the personal computer division of IBM. We’re all familiar with the ThinkPad. Apart from laptops and PCs, Lenovo also sells smartphone, tablets and smart TVs. It also acquired Motorola in 2014.
Its portfolio of high quality and secure products and services also includes workstations, storage and apps. Currently, Lenovo is leading the global PC market and has smartly snatched market share from the leaders like Apple and Dell.
Visiting Lenovo’s Campus in Beijing
The campus sits inside Zhongguancun Technology Park. It is also known as China’s Silicon Valley, a technology hub in Haidian District, Beijing, China.
Not only does it host Lenovo, but you can also spot Tencent, Microsoft, Sony and other major tech companies.
I describe Lenovo’s new mission ‘Smarter Technology For All’ as to how what and who. Smarter (how), Technology (what) for you (for whom). It’s my interpretation of their vision.
Being around their facility, I realized how diverse Lenovo’s portfolio was. Contrary to popular belief, Lenovo is more than just a personal laptop brand.
With products ranging from home tech to virtual reality, from voice tech to artificial intelligence, Lenovo is aiming to create smarter technology for an extensive range of audiences.
Lenovo’s campus is massive, with 15000 people based on it. Other than that, Lenovo employs over 57,000 people worldwide. No manufacturing or production is done at the facility; it is basically to exhibit and showcase their products and new launches to the audiences.
Demonstrations and presentations are held for media people and journalists. Over five C-Level executives presented their thoughts and ideas about their vision and perspective of Smarter Technology For All.
Lenovo’s New Future Center
It was a pretty crazy trip that gave me a rare glimpse and insight into what Lenovo Beijing Campus was like. It also provided an opportunity to see the new future center, which opened to the public in Novemeber, 2019.
The Future Center contains devices from health, home tech, gaming. It covers all aspects of a well-rounded organization that aims to make technology accessible to all its people.
Lenovo’s Tech World 2019
At Lenovo’s Tech World, the main stage featured Lenovo’s CEO, Yang Yuanqing, also showcased the world’s first foldable PC with a flexible screen apart from the Motorola Razr foldable phone. There was a long queue for people to see the new foldable products.
Mark my words, we’re going to see more fold-form products and I feel like Lenovo is leading the way.
I saw the prototype being developed and then I was lucky to witness its final production form in CES 2020. It’s nice seeing the growth of a product in person.
As we watched more presentations, I thought more about what they were trying to say and realised they wanted companies and individuals to be empowered and enabled their lives with technology. Increase of flexibility and productivity is the key takeaway.
The fun part was getting more product insights from the staff who was holding the fort. My favourite part was playing with the vending machine.
The exhibits included gaming computers, Lenovo’s first-ever foldable PC’s prototype, desk setups, and AR headsets, to name a few.
Final Thoughts
The time spent in Beijing gave me insights into the workings and the thinking processes of Lenovo. The thinking they had to have gone through to come up with the ‘smarter technology for all’ campaign. They truly do inspire everyday tech for everybody by thinking way ahead of us into the future. In a way, they’re allowing us to be who we are today, running businesses online, creating a space for ourselves.
All in all, it was a truly immersive experience, and I gained a lot of exposure to upcoming futuristic innovations and how they plan to revolutionalize our lives.
When it comes down to why I enjoyed the tour of the oldest city in the world, being inside Lenovo allowed me to imagine how everyday people – you and I can use technology to empower ourselves.
I look forward to sharing my CES trip with you shortly.
Stay tuned.
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