‘We think that the AI market is going to pick up over the next two years in that on-prem segment and channel partners are going to be a very important part of that as we go across those markets,’ says Vlad Rozanovich, senior vice president of infrastructure solutions at Lenovo.

Lenovo is leaning on highly skilled channel partners to deliver AI-driven business outcomes for its customers with software now and hardware in the future, Vlad Rozanovich, senior vice president of infrastructure solutions, told CRN.

The company, with dual headquarters in Beijing and Morrisville, N.C., is expanding its AI development capabilities through a strategic partnership program called “AI Innovator Partners.” It focuses on collaborating with dozens of proven, independent software vendors to bring certified AI solutions to market, Rozanovich said in an interview ahead of Lenovo Tech World.

“It is a meet-in-the-channel-type solution,” he said. “We’ve set up these business practices with GSIs like Insight where if you need to have machine vision technology using Lenovo edge servers and this particular software stack, Insight can go sell this to quick serve, retail, manufacturing, etc.”

[RELATED: Lenovo North American Channel Chief Rob Cato Ready To Take On Rivals: ‘Absolutely We Want To Take Share‘]

Rozanovich said one recent example of the service being put to use in the real world is Lenovo’s work with Everseen, a security AI software company. When supermarket operator Kroger, a longtime Lenovo customer, became interested in Everseen’s AI stack, the retailer turned to Lenovo for validation.

“Lenovo has been supplying Kroger on the server side for years. We were kind of the de facto data center provider for Kroger,” Rozanovich said.

He said the Cincinnati-based grocery chain – one of the largest retailers in the world with $150 billion in annual revenue – wanted to use Everseen’s software for its self-checkouts, but it was leery of moving forward with an ISV without having a larger partner backing it up.

“AI innovators gave Kroger the confidence to go with a smaller ISV, because it was running on Lenovo hardware,” Rozaonovich said.

He said by working with integrators like Chandler, Arizona-based Insight Enterprises, and seasoned ISVs, the teams figure out the answer to the thorny problems around implementation. Rozanovich said Lenovo has the market penetration to give those software makers exposure to enterprise environments.

“We’ve shown them the success of Everseen and Lenovo, and it made sense for them to adopt this as a practice,” Rozanovich said.

This approach allows Insight to sell machine vision technologies powered by Lenovo edge servers to various sectors, including quick-serve retail, manufacturing, and grocery stores, further solidifying Lenovo’s foothold in the AI-driven business solutions market.

“We’re seeing it in department stores, quick serve retail,” he said. “In fraud detection … We are making it repeatable for both the AI innovator, for the channel partner, and for ourselves.”

Rozanovich said a critical focus for Lenovo has been its work with CIOs and CTOs around AI deployment strategies. He said CEOs are under pressure to integrate AI into their operations, but they first need to assess factors like business outcomes, data security, sovereignty, and workforce skills.

As businesses build their AI estates, Rozanovich sees data sovereignty, and cost of cloud usage heralding the return of workloads on prem. The channel will be critical to delivery, he said.

“We need our channel partners to be part of that, “he said “If you look at our channel partners, they know on prem extremely well. They know how to sell cloud serves as well, but most channel partners excel at selling on prem … We think that the AI market is going to pick up over the next two years in that on-prem segment and channel partners are going to be a very important part of that as we go across those markets.”