R&D spree to find new growth engine - Business - Chinadaily.com.cn

Lenovo Group Ltd said it plans to pour $1.2 billion into the research and development of artificial intelligence, the internet of things and big data over the next four years－as the Chinese tech group scrambles to breathe new life into its PC, smartphone and other hardware businesses. Chairman Yang Yuanqing said in an interview with Japanese news outlet Nikkei that the Beijing-headquartered company aims to find a new growth engine through heavy R&D investment and partnerships with global giants such as Google Inc and Amazon.com The company is expected to unveil a new handset that comes with Amazon's voice recognition technology Alexa, and it now already sells a smartphone that uses Google's Tango augmented reality computing platform. Lenovo, which controls 20 percent of the global personal computer market, has been struggling to revive its profits amid a shrinking demand for PCs and intensified competition with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in the smartphone sector. But as the global artificial intelligence technology made significant progress in recent years, the Chinese company's chairman said his group realized that hefty investments into AI can help it reduce its reliance on PCs and raise the contribution of smartphones and other new business to 50 percent of total sales from the current 30 percent.