Lenovo is betting big on India’s enterprise market, underpinned by robust demand for hardware infrastructure across sectors such as banking, financial services, insurance, manufacturing, IT services and global capability centres.
Sovereign AI and hybrid cloud are fueling domestic hardware demand
The company believes local consumption is strong enough to sustain its manufacturing base, without depending solely on exports, Amit Luthra, managing director India, Lenovo ISG told FE. He said demand in India is being fuelled by the twin shifts to hybrid cloud and enterprise AI. With sovereign AI gaining traction, enterprises building large language models locally are looking for infrastructure that allows them to keep training and inference data close at hand.
This, he stressed, is driving a significant headroom for domestic hardware investments. “India is fast emerging as a powerhouse in the global AI revolution, and Lenovo is proud to be at the forefront of this transformation with Nutanix,” Luthra said.
Local manufacturing & decades of joint innovation
To meet this demand, the company has been expanding its “Make in India” approach. After announcing locally manufactured compute infrastructure last year, Lenovo has now tied up with Nutanix to give enterprises a combination of software solutions on its hardware offerings.
The appliances available for this collaboration come with a choice of Intel or AMD platforms, are manufactured and customised domestically, enabling faster delivery and implementation for partners in the country. By contextualising this step as part of its broader strategy, Lenovo positions the Nutanix collaboration as one way it is making hybrid cloud projects more tangible for Indian enterprises.
The partnership itself goes back more than a decade, beginning with early bets on hyperconverged infrastructure. Over the years, Lenovo and Nutanix have built a model that combines Lenovo’s global manufacturing and supply chain strength with Nutanix’s software capabilities. However, the tie-up is not exclusive in nature, leaving both Nutanix and Lenovo to explore other avenues to expand their respective businesses.
Customers have the flexibility to consume Nutanix software directly or through Lenovo, while both companies invest jointly in R&D and customer support. “Since 2016, Lenovo and Nutanix have forged a powerful partnership, grounded in innovation and delivering cutting-edge solutions for our customers,” Faiz Shakir, VP & Managing Director India and Asean, Nutanix, said.
Nutanix, for its part, has made India central to its own growth, with large R&D hubs in Bengaluru and Pune and the country ranking as its biggest market in Asia Pacific and Japan. This complements Lenovo’s strategy of using India not just as a manufacturing hub, but also as a critical testbed for new technologies and solutions.