Lenovo, Nokia Partner on Data Center Networking, Automation and AI

Modernizing data center networking and automation to wring out more powerful capabilities that can further drive the next advances in AI is the aim of a new partnership between Lenovo and Nokia.

The partnership between the companies comes as growing AI demands in business and industry are broadly expanding in a marketplace that continues to find expected new uses for AI every day.

Under the deal, the companies will bring together the Lenovo ThinkSystem AI-ready line of high-performance servers and storage and Nokia’s data center network technologies and products. The Nokia technologies include data center fabric, IP routing, and DDoS security portfolios, as well as its recently announced Event-Driven Automation (EDA) platform for data centers.

By combining these technologies, Lenovo and Nokia say that they will boost their abilities to help their customers to meet the growing and evolving data processing and network performance requirements of modern AI, machine learning and other compute-intensive workloads. This becomes even more important, the companies say, as AI models are trained and as data centers for inferencing will be needed where AI clusters are networked. That can be within and between data centers at the edge, which requires high-speed, reliable and secure interconnectivity, according to Lenovo and Nokia.

The partners said that they expect to jointly market these expanded networking and automation capabilities to enterprises, telcos, and digital infrastructure and cloud providers. The new services will be highlighted by “a validated blueprint architecture” which “enables seamless automation of AI/ML and compute-intensive workloads with enhanced observability, programmability, and extensibility, which are crucial for adapting to dynamic environments,” according to Lenovo and Nokia. Built-in real time cybersecurity capabilities and tools will also be featured in the products offered through the partnership, as well as energy-efficient designs that reduce power consumption and operational costs while promoting data center critical sustainability.

By bringing together Nokia’s automated data fabric and Lenovo’s automated compute and storage solutions, including its Neptune liquid cooling technology, the partners aim to help their customers create and deploy next-gen sustainable infrastructure to drive their future AI and other compute intensive workloads.

Improving Infrastructure to Drive AI Performance

Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group, told ChannelE2E that the latest Nokia and Lenovo partnership makes a lot of sense.

“This is a smart move for both companies,” said Enderle. “Nokia is still a powerful and recognized brand in Europe and they were once the leader in mobile computing. This partnership raises Lenovo’s visibility in Europe and it provides Nokia with access to what is the most advanced end-to-end AI solutions vendor currently in the market.”

Even more important, said Enderle, is that the partnership addresses critical needs for both companies. “Lenovo needs the visibility on their AI solutions while they lead the market in order to gain as much related business as possible, and Nokia needs to move aggressively into the AI age, thus both companies provide what the other needs.”

Enderle said he expects other companies to discover and create similar technology synergies in the future and make similar partnership deals in the future. 

“There are few companies that yet know how to make AI work and partnering with them is a best practice as other companies learn how and where to use this productivity enhancing AI technology,” said Enderle.