Lenovo HPC Business Grows Twice as Fast as the Market – IDC 

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HPC or High Performance Computing is the use of parallel processing for running advanced programs efficiently, reliably and quickly. Or said another way, these are some of the most complex Supercomputers in the word working on some of the most perplexing challenges in the world. These challenges range from climate change to severe weather to helping understand deadly diseases.

In 2016, Lenovo business grew twice as fast as the overall market (footnote), and this should not come as a surprise. Since the sale of the x86 business unit from IBM, Lenovo has been quietly growing this segment, winning an array of deals in some of the most competitive HPC markets. Here is what we believe Lenovo got right.

Cultivate the Talent: Lenovo brought the deep skills from the IBM acquisition and has done a great job of keeping and cultivating that talent. The expertise built from the IBM days is intact at Lenovo along with some of the equally valuable industry relationships. This is key in driving the complex architectures that allow Supercomputers to squeeze more performance and Petaflops possible out of every cluster.

A good example of that is the new Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530, a single node of which is eight times faster than the first x86 Supercomputer that IBM ever built for the University of New Mexico at Lobos in 2000. Not to mention that the ThinkSystem SD530 takes on 2% of the rack space required by the Lobos Cluster.

Maintain better Partnerships: A good partnership goes a long way in the HPC business. With shrinking budgets and growing demand for data and compute resources, customers are more selective than ever before. Timelines also play a role as customers struggle to acquire the latest tech that brings enhancements on performance to energy efficiency. Lenovo has done a great job of partnering closely with industry giants.

A good example of this was the recent enhancements to the Mare Nostrum Supercomputer at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). Lenovo was able to help design, build and deploy over 3,500 servers in a single Supercomputer using the latest Intel “Skylake” chip before Intel announced the product was available. This type of tight relationship with key industry players makes all the difference in the world for customers who want to take advantage of the latest in Supercomputing tech.

Supply Chain as a Weapon: Finally, Lenovo is bringing its high-volume and tested supply chain savvy to the HPC segment. The traditional approach calls for specialization of tasks within the supply chain, while separating manufacturing of components, integration, and performance testing into separate and sometimes dispersed centers. Lenovo has taken a different approach.

A good example is the Lenovo LSTC facility in Shenzhen, which is specialized for HPC customer requirements. This unique facility has the capability to manufacture, integrate, performance tune and ship directly to customer site. With a horizontally integrated approach, customers get a faster response on the overall project delivery.

The HPC segment remains as competitive as ever. Lenovo was able to grow its HPC business twice as fast as the market in 2016 by cultivating world class HPC talent, leveraging partnerships to help customers and bring its supply chain expertise to bear. Lenovo will continue to add tools to its well-developed arsenal in order to continue to stay ahead of the HPC market.