Lenovo To Add 12,000 R&D Jobs After Record Quarter

The Hong Kong-based company plans a massive hiring initiative to sustain its lofty research and development goals; environmental initiatives will also see a huge boost in the coming years.

Global PC leader Lenovo on Monday said that it would add 12,000 research and development jobs to its roster over the next three years as part of its effort to double investment in R&D worldwide.

The news came at Lenovo’s annual company kick-off to start its new financial year. The hires will add to the 5,000 R&D jobs already added in fiscal year 2021/2022. Lenovo made the announcement as Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing laid out the firm’s vision to become a leader in IT architecture of “client-edge-cloud-network-intelligence.”

“My vision for Lenovo’s innovation is to become one of the world’s leading ICT [information and communications technologies] companies, a pioneer and enabler of intelligent transformation,” he said in a statement. “Our intention is to optimize between technology with quick market returns and foundational research, and between continuous improvement and breakthrough innovation.”

The company, which has 63,000 employees, said its R&D efforts will focus on new and emerging IT architecture and that it would build teams to work on new products and business models to focus on the metaverse and other emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and heterogeneous computing.

Coming off a quarter with a record $20 billion haul, the company is flush with cash for such initiatives.

In a February interview with CRN, Vladimir Rozanovich, Lenovo’s North America president, talked about the company’s $2 billion R&D commitment and what it would mean for the future. “There’s going to be a massive investment around making sure we’re building the most secure platforms on the planet and making sure we have the most secure supply chain on the planet.”

During the kick-off event, the company reiterated its commitment to environmental, social and governance (ESG) program improvements,and pledged to become a carbon “net-zero” company by 2050. “Lenovo is much more than business growth and financial success,” Yang said. “We are innovators who are committed to helping solve humanity’s greatest challenges. Smarter powers what’s next.”

Rozanovich said the ESG initiatives would be a top priority for North American operations as well. “When you look at some of the environmental, social governance requirements that some corporations and some governments are starting to implement, we need to ask how do you make sure that you can get as close to a carbon-neutral footprint as possible? I think you’re going to see a lot of innovation coming out of Lenovo over the next few years when it comes to our ESG strategies because we know this is starting to become a government requirement.”

Lenovo did not return requests for comment.