The neXt Curve reThink Podcast

CES 2026 and Lenovo Tech World 2026 Recap (with Anurag & Prakash)

• Leonard Lee, Anurag Agrawal, Prakash Sangam • Season 8 • Episode 1

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Leonard is joined by Anurag Agrawal of Techaisle and Prakash Sangam of Tantra Analyst to discuss the highlights of CES 2026, the Mecca of Tech, and Tech World 2026, Lenovo’s marquee event and showcase, which took place at The Sphere. 

Unsurprisingly, AI continues to be the centerpiece of keynote conversation. The AI flavor of this year’s event was physical AI, teed up as agentic AI continues to search for footing. 
The trio cover the things that mattered from silicon to device hitting the topics of AI PC, automotive tech, private hybrid AI, humanoid robotics, the NPU, the perception edge, and more.

Outline:

Hit Leonard, Prakash, and Anurag up on LinkedIn and take part in their industry and tech insights.

Check out Anurag and his research at Techaisle at www.techaisle.com.
Check out Prakash and his research at Tantra Analyst at www.tantraanalyst.com

Please subscribe to our podcast which will be featured on the neXt Curve YouTube Channel. Check out the audio version on BuzzSprout or find us on your favorite Podcast platform.

Also, subscribe to the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com and our Substack (https://substack.com/@nextcurve) for the tech and industry insights that matter.

NOTE: The transcript is AI-generated and will contain errors.
DISCLAIMER: This program is for informational purposes only.

Prakash Sangam:

Next curve.

Leonard Lee:

Welcome everyone to this next Curve Reaping podcast episode where we break down the latest tech and industry events and happenings into the insights that matter. And I'm Leonard Lee, executive Analyst at Next Curve. And I'm here with my very good analyst friends, honor Agrawal he's the Chief Global Analyst. This is like probably the highest title in the entire analyst universe, but he is the Chief Global Analyst of Tech Isle. the leading SMB, tech research firm out there. And then of course, my good friend, Prakash Sanga of Tantra Analyst. Gentleman, how's it going?

Anurag Agrawal:

Great, happy to be here. And I tell you, when you say the highest title possible, and I must tell you this, that after I took on that title many years ago, Uhhuh, I have seen others follow suit. they have changed their, the title, even if it's a one man show.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

They change the title to call themselves achieve analyst.

Leonard Lee:

yeah. you started a trend. you raised the bar.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

Copying is the best way of flat, right?

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah,

Leonard Lee:

exactly. And so yeah, gentlemen, we're gonna be doing our, CES 2026 recap, but we'll also be, talking about, probably the biggest highlight of this year's event. Which was, Lenovo's Tech world, 2026, which was quite amazing. It took place at the sphere in Las Vegas. And we'll address that as well. very interested to hear what you guys thought about the event and what were the takes that really popped from that, rather fantastic event. And before we get started, remember to like, share and comment on this episode and subscribe to the Rethink podcast here on YouTube and buzz route. Take us on the road on your jog and listen to us on your favorite podcast. Platform. And this podcast is for informational purposes only statements. My by my guests are their own and don't reflect that of next curve. We just wanna provide a forum for debate and discussion on, tech and the industry. And with that, gentlemen, let's start off with, CES 2026.

Anurag Agrawal:

That's

Leonard Lee:

good. Um, yeah, I mean, as usual crazy, crazy insane, event. I was there starting on Sunday, so I had a good five days there. But, gentlemen, let's start off with og. what were the key takes and impressions that you got out of the end event? Maybe let's start off with impressions really quickly and then we'll go around with, the key takes, so, sure,

Anurag Agrawal:

sure. Absolutely. But one of the most important things I learned was, I saw on my Apple watch that 16,500 steps average per day.

Leonard Lee:

Wow.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yes. I mean, you guys were walking a lot more, you were like moving from one venue to another venue. I was in like only just in a couple of venues. But it was good. But to answer your question, from my perspective, the big takeaway or the big impression this year was not just more ai, but a gradual shift towards a agent autonomy, right?

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

Last year we talked about copilots. This year we saw the industry talking about agent systems that don't just assist but actually execute. We saw this in the physical AI team dominating the floor where AI is finally getting body from production ready, Boston Dynamics Atlas to the rise of the fi. Yeah. We call this the fidgital, which is the physical plus digital platforms, uh, platforms. Yeah. And we are also seeing the both of the autonomous organization where technology is no longer a tool for a user, but a digital teammate. We saw that in health tech, in home tech and so on and so forth. And on the PC side, I think we have moved beyond AI on the PC to the PC reimagined for AI and modular hardware design and so on and so forth. But yes, you are right. What stole the show, not just the device, but the Lenovo Tech war.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

It was such a grand keynote.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

Bite-sized information. The experience was absolutely awesome.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah. Was that your first time, by the way, at the sphere?

Anurag Agrawal:

No, I was at the Sphere first time with HP.

Leonard Lee:

That's what I figured.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yes. So that was several years ago.

Leonard Lee:

Mm-hmm.

Anurag Agrawal:

That was followed by HPE or something like that. I forget. Last year was a good one. That was GCP had Google Next had its keynote there where they actually spent a lot of, lot more time on saying how they actually digitized. Wizard All

Leonard Lee:

wizard

Anurag Agrawal:

I think That's how they spent time. But this was, the experience was phenomenal.

Leonard Lee:

Prakash, what about you? What were your impressions during

Prakash Sangam:

Sure. I agree with the no two words about, tech word being, the center of attraction, if you will. I'll come to Leno and the details a little bit, but I think overall overarching message for me was, ai, AI was this concept, this futuristic thing. Everybody had their own idea, last year and year before that. But actual manifestation of that AI into actual products, services, and use cases and so on, right? Physical ai, of course, was everywhere. it gives, in my view, a good, headline for iot connectivity, AI processing everything together, edge, compute and everything together in something that is meaningful and useful for people. Right. So that is second fiscal ai. And then, when we went around all these, shows, robot Dog was a favorite for each and every, Almost every booth where it was humanized this year. Whether you are connected to a physical AI and human aid or not, but you have to have a human aid in your booth, to be cool. Right. So that was,

Leonard Lee:

yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

One thing. And I see that there's a lot of, things happening on the PC side, which was not the case. For almost last decade. A lot of experimentation, bringing ai IPCs are a thing now, but what to do with that ai, I think the, the, uh, RA that, uh, announced, I think that is, instrumental the first time OEM, it's a big step for them coming up with something that, basically putting a front end for every complexity that is on PCs or laptop or the phones. And being a AI agent for a user, hiding all the complexity, I think will deep, dig, dig deeper into it. But I think, yeah, that's the very high level what my take was, where, and of course, the steps which. Cs and, uh, you know, CS putting

Leonard Lee:

into steps. Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

The mobile law Congress in, February, March, those two months were the highest steps ever.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

Right. Two months that you put in steps, right. So, yeah.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah. I think, CES tends to be worse. I put in maybe 25,000 steps a day.

Prakash Sangam:

Wow.

Leonard Lee:

There you go.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

There you go.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah. the problem is the transportation is iffy.

Prakash Sangam:

if

Leonard Lee:

you wanna make your, meeting in another building, sometimes it's better just to walk.

Prakash Sangam:

Walk. Yeah. Even for LBCC to win, I did couple of walks. Because. Getting on bus or, or a taxi or was taking so much of time walking. Walking I think is the best convinced at see. Yeah. So that, and also I did not get sick, you know? That's awesome. Get,

Leonard Lee:

I think we're good. I think we're good.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

But, yeah, this year for me, it was interesting to see infrastructure, AI infrastructure get injected into the conversation. But I think, that was countered by, a pretty strong vibe coming off of, edge ai, especially from the silicon perspective as well as, this whole area of, perception ai, right? and so interestingly, there's a lot of excitement. Outside of the data center, and I think you mentioned, Prash, A IPC. I think it's still trying to find its legs, but, the more interesting applications may actually be, in the industrial edge as well as, some of these other iot scenarios where, contextual computing is going to actually be a possibility. Right. And restructure the thinking around, IOT and what you can do with iot, whether it's for consumers, industry, or the enterprise. So that, that was a nice counterpoint to what we've been seeing like a lot of chip companies in particular Nvidia and a MD try to press upon a consumer, a, a consumer electronics or tech. Conference with their infrastructure, narrative. So, and you know, they had set up, what is that thing called? There was a CES, foundry. The foundry right over at the font blue.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

where they had a lot of the AI emphasis, I don't know, they call it ai and then quantum, I didn't see a lot of the quantum stuff.

Prakash Sangam:

That was a big missing piece.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah. And historically, IBM is, has been the custodian of the, the quantum, topic at CES, I mean, dating way back when I was even at IBM. So this is really long time ago. Um, but I didn't see too much, quantum stuff, which may be a, maybe a good thing. I don't know. I think everyone's still trying to figure out what to do with

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

AI at the moment. But, anyway, honor rock. How about your key takes from the event? What were the things that really, pop for you? I know that we were at many of the similar or the same, vendor events, right. what are those things that really made an impression for you this year?

Anurag Agrawal:

Right, so the way I think about this seminar, there were two things that I was following up, One is the silicon, the chip that you mentioned.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

the Silicon Foundation. And the other one was the OEM Innovation Peak in where is that innovation going?

Leonard Lee:

right

Anurag Agrawal:

with the respect to Lenovo and Dell and hp. But before we lean on into oem, I'm sure we'll talk a lot more about that. Let's talk about this Silicon foundation. Right. because the way I thought about this and the way I absorbed this, that. We are now coming into this agentic future.

Leonard Lee:

Mm-hmm.

Anurag Agrawal:

Right. I found that the chip makers are in a brutal race.

Leonard Lee:

Mm-hmm.

Anurag Agrawal:

Brutal arms race to actually own that local NPU story. Right.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

And we saw that Nvidia, Jen Jensen Huang, really lean into physical ai. The announcement of, uh, where are ban platform and the al Palm Mayo, the reasoning models. Autonom vehicles show that Nvidia is really moving beyond the data center and into the thinking machine space.

Leonard Lee:

Mm-hmm.

Anurag Agrawal:

Intel, I think from my point of view. It could be a massive year for Intel. You know, they launched their, the Panther Lake, I think they call it Core three on the, in a node

Leonard Lee:

series

Anurag Agrawal:

three.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

Is there do or die moment to reclaim manufacturing leadership? Right. I mean, I don't think they will die, but I think we like to call it a do and die moment. And Lisa Sue countered with the Rise in AI 400 series, right? And their focus is clearly on the efficiency crown, right?

Leonard Lee:

Mm-hmm.

Anurag Agrawal:

to ensure that the heavy lifting of the agent automation happens on the device, not in the expensive cloud. And then Qualcomm, I did not get to interact with them quite a bit, but Qualcomm, you know, while Intel and a MD are actually fighting to stay relevant, in the, at the high end. I think Qualcomm made a case at the CS to go after the mainstream volume.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

They launch the Snapdragon X two plus, which brings the flagship 80 tops, I think. Yeah. Down to$800 price point, right? Yeah. And for the SMB market, the way you started off my intro, the SMB in the mid-market, which is our sweet spot, this is the most disruptive announcement. Right. And they were also in the,, in the automotive space, right? Yeah. The Snapdragon Cockpit Elite and the Right Elite and all that.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah. So I think those were my Silicon Foundation. quick takes, I mean, what about yours?

Leonard Lee:

Prakash, you're next man.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah, sure. I agree with what, all said on the silicon front, especially, I'm, impressed with CalCom's, X two plus. I think that's going to be, for, at least the near future consumer is going to be their target market. I mean, of course they're trying to get into enterprise, but that's a long game, right? And it'll take some time for them. And then consumer, I think the mid-market is key with their X two plus with highest, NPU 80 tops that anybody can offer in that range.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yep.

Prakash Sangam:

I think, really key. So we interviewed, we have talked about EIPC on device, AI processing and so on, but we are starting to see that happen, right? Like RA is a good example. I know in a call, at the MD in the morning today where they said they're working with like 180 is ISIS small and p to utilize NPA better way, come up with applications and use cases to utilize NPU. If the NPU usage takes off in next couple of years, the guys who are buying PCs today, will have these PCs for next two years. And then, when you compare 40 or 50 of, Intel and, EMD versus 80 of Qualcomm Snapdragon next two, I think that'll stand out. And, you know, it'll be interesting to see how that pans out. So, so law depends on the, this on D device, ai, takeoff, how, you know, the larger it is, the larger it is again, ofm, right? So that's one. And, going, coming back to Kira, I think it is, one, I would say a key moments in time for AI on PCs or on on devices, I would say. but I think it's more relevant in my view on PCs right now. Of course, it'll be on device, on phone as well, but from a phone point of view, it is almost the, Microsoft controlling the all aspects of user experience and interface so far. But this is the first time you have something that directly, that is a, a solution from the OEM, which interfaces with the customer. it is across the devices. It is secure because all of the information stays on the device, securely, but the experience spans, across devices, right? Mm-hmm. Across laptops. Whether it is a phone, right now I think it's Lemo, but looks like it could be on, non Lemo phones as well. So that is very instrumental and all three of us were in a, detailed, debrief on it. So how they instrumented, how they are, storing the knowledge graph securely, how they're transferring, that securely without, only the context and the theme, not the actual data and so on. that is really interesting. I think, this would, encourage others to look at doing something as well. Right now, everybody is kind of doing behind either Gemini or copilot. You know, like for example, you can buy stuff on Walmart or other stores on Gemini right away, or on copilot, which is going behind these, AI models and behind there frontend interface, we are working with them. But Cera is much more revolutionary in the sense that it is on the front end rather than the back end of these LLM. So, that is extremely interesting, development in my view. And also Samsung, of course, they had their large 130, 140 inch TVs and other things. I attend their keynote, which is of course AI everywhere. But AI making smarter, smart things, IOT devices, much smarter, much more connected contextual. I think that is, an example of what I was saying. AI node for AI sake, but making it, meaningful for the users and making use of it. For better user experiences and such, and they announced their laptops, galaxy Book six series.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Prakash Sangam:

I think one improvement there is previously there are too many, models in my view. There was a standard one. There is a pro, there is a 360 version and there is a 360 Pro and, a regular pro and 360 Pro and so on. a lot of complications on which one to select, although they're the portfolio smaller even. It was confusing, but they streamlined it with only three models this time and the performance I checked out, was pretty good as well. They had their, trifold, for, experience. Not a

Leonard Lee:

big fan of that.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah, I mean, if you are, this is, the conundrum for me is. with, four six, sorry, with four seven, you now a device of four day affordable with is, which is very similar to a classic mainline, mainstream flag smartphone. And you are happy with saying I, and I get the foldable or just screen with the same form factor as a mainstream flagship device. Now to get a larger screen, I have to go to a thicker device as well. So that's kind of a condom, but I still, I'm impressed by, it's performance, how thin it is. You know, the kidney is defined by, the word of the C the, USBC connector. So I used it, I allowed it. I would definitely use it, although it's a little bit thicker than the current forward seven. So, yeah. And then, and they had their, Headset. Galaxy XR headset.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

On display for experience as well. I tried it out pretty good. I'll probably be reviewing it soon, so yeah, that's kinda cool. High level key. Key,

Leonard Lee:

yeah. I mean, I just think it's a publicity stunt and, both on the part of Huawei and then now fast falling with Samsung. Samsung kind of had to do it because, it looked like it might be behind, but I have to be really honest with you, that thing was frigging thick.

Prakash Sangam:

mean it,

Leonard Lee:

funky.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah. it's a first word and that's when the fold, the regular fold wear z fold wear. But now I think the holy grail would be basically getting a trifold in the as thickness and weight as a regular stream and a mainstream flagship, which I think is on the way. Uh,

Leonard Lee:

I, I think you bump into physical limits because quite honestly, I think the glass,

Prakash Sangam:

yeah,

Leonard Lee:

glass is too thin and, it, it's prone to breaking.

Prakash Sangam:

yeah. Mean that's, that was how it was when the thin phones came. Right. So I believe in technology evolution and I wouldn't be surprised. We will see that in next couple of years. Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

Maybe, maybe they'll invent the glass from Star Trek, the. The, what is it? The, transparent aluminum. And then at that point, maybe we can revisit this, but at this point, I think the gorilla gra glass for those phones have to be so thin that they're, you're going to have breakages and then eventually the OEMs are not gonna wanna produce those anymore. But what I was really impressed by

Prakash Sangam:

mm-hmm.

Leonard Lee:

And I was glad I had, I actually found it at the Lenovo, HQ for CES 2026 was their razor fold. I did like a side by side with the Samsung Z fold seven. It's almost as thin. Mm-hmm. but it does have a slightly curved screen, so it makes it a little bit thicker. But going back to that comment I made about the glass, I think there may be more durability in the display, glass because of that curvature. I don't know, but it, it seems that way. but I wouldn't be surprised if there was more rigidity and a durability. thanks to that design. Maybe they learned something, but, I know that if it's flat, you don't have to drop it. It'll, it cracks. And, the other thing was I was really surprised by, the razor signature.

Anurag Agrawal:

The razor signature.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah. Thin. It's almost like an edge more than it is, let's say a response to an iPhone 17 or, you know, S 20, six. it's thin.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

The materials are really nice. So I think

Prakash Sangam:

I never used any of their phones. I think even I had heard good things about their first, flip,

Leonard Lee:

They're,

Prakash Sangam:

they're good.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

Now to test them out, especially forward, I mean, I've been using foldables, since, four four, which is like, what, 2022, early 20, 22, something like that. So I would love to test it out, if they send me one and review it.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah. I have not used a single foldable phone ever at all. I don't intend to buy it. If somebody sends it to me, then I will definitely try it out.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

But you know, I have been using Apple device for a very, very long time. But yes. I mean, Some of them are really, really good. I'm not sure if, signature is being introduced in the US or not through Verizon.

Leonard Lee:

It's

Anurag Agrawal:

Oh, it is.

Leonard Lee:

Verizon,

Anurag Agrawal:

I think one of the phones was not being introduced in the US so maybe it was the signature, or maybe it was the fold. I'm not, they're, they're foldable. I'm not sure about that. But yeah, I should have gone to the Samsung, site to kind of see there. but I did not,

Leonard Lee:

yeah,

Anurag Agrawal:

way much.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

I was spending way too much time on Dell and HP and, Lenovo.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah. so Motorola, I'll say this, I think I tweeted this as well. It's making big strides in, basically becoming, another third premium phone in the US market. I think they should focus more on the US market because that's, you said that trend here, right? and I think market is. Ready for a third, premium, OEM in the us. and the strides they have been making I think they are there.

Leonard Lee:

yeah, they definitely have their own style. It's different. They're not fast following Apple or they're not fast following Samsung. They really do have their own.

Prakash Sangam:

Correct.

Leonard Lee:

Identity. And then, the other thing, oh yeah. Smart glasses or you know, a lot of folks were thinking that smart glasses would be a big thing going in and I think it were, but there hasn't been much improvement since last year. Yeah. It was like, these things are still not that great. pretty bad actually. and you know, I had a couple interactions with folks at the CES unveil, and it's clear these are not standalone devices. There's this misconception right now, everyone thinks that these are somehow standalone devices. They're not, they're peripherals.

Prakash Sangam:

Peripherals.

Leonard Lee:

And the smartphone is your puck.

Prakash Sangam:

Correct.

Leonard Lee:

And anyone who tries to sell a puck, good luck.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah. I would rather buy a external battery, same as a puck, same size as a puck at much cheaper price. Right. Why would you buy a puck? yeah.

Leonard Lee:

Maybe me.

Prakash Sangam:

and I'm actually appalled. I expected actually more, concerns about privacy with this, With the

Leonard Lee:

Yeah,

Prakash Sangam:

yeah. AR glasses, because I mean, it is, and a recording everything. You don't know when it is recording, when it's not. And or people might say, oh, it's only recording in the public, but a lot of times you are rocking on the road. You might, in a record what's happening inside the home or office or something like that. So I'm actually really, really surprised that people are not worried about the privacy issues with the AR glasses yet. I, I'm really

Leonard Lee:

surprised.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

Aren't, but the OEMs, many of the OEMs aren't. So, and that may be the problem,

Anurag Agrawal:

No, I was just, I was saying about the AR glasses. I've been in several meetings where the person sitting opposite me was wearing an AR glass and I said, you need to take it off. I don't know what, what is being recorded. but the same time I've seen some of my family members use it very, very effectively. Right. To say, Hey, I'm going for my grandkids, some function or some concert or something. And they stop it and they record it. Right. And it works out pretty well. It's not like trying to take out their phone. But what I was coming back to is Motorola. Prakash made a comment about being the third premium market. And we already know that Motorola is currently the number three smartphone in the us but they are in a trap, right? Because of the fact that they are. in the prepaid market with Cricket and Boost or Metro or T-Mobile But while Motorola is the giant in the prepaid market, with, Lenovo's pocket to cloud strategy and the Lenovo Kira AI ecosystem. They have the potential to use AI to break out of that budget category.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah,

Anurag Agrawal:

absolutely. In the us And finally give enterprises and the affluent consumers a reason to look at, Motorola phone as a serious tool again.

Prakash Sangam:

Absolutely. I mean, especially if you look at their enterprise, penetration and enterprise presents.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yep.

Prakash Sangam:

They, they have a very strong play to make, good enterprise phone. But

Anurag Agrawal:

yeah,

Prakash Sangam:

with all the investments they're doing in branding. In of Pantone and, uh, sorrow skin and other things. I, I think they can be default premium period, right? Not, with the qualification. Some of the phones are coming through Horizon. they are now limited to the prepaid and tier two, operators. But if they come onto tier one operators and then have a strong presence in enterprise, they can definitely claim their, positioning as a premium. Uh, the phone is premium, no question about it. It's only positioning and branding.

Anurag Agrawal:

So, I have to tell you interesting story. about a month ago or two months ago, we were traveling, me and my wife, we were traveling somewhere. And at the airport, who do we meet? So the, so the. Who is the chief strategy officer of mobility.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

And he whipped out his KY phone.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

and my wife said for that, I will switch from Apple to Yeah,

Leonard Lee:

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

They're very, yeah. Did they, earphones?

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

So those were, splint as well. You basically, rather than they looking ugly, they look like, ornaments on your ears, right? Yeah,

Anurag Agrawal:

yeah,

Leonard Lee:

yeah. They look great. But that, I mean, you know, Kira as an example of why actually, Lenovo is in a unique position, and I know we're talking a lot about Lenovo, but they are a unique company.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

That they have the pocket to cloud and they're different in that way from Samsung, which is really, pocket to desktop.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

the. AI strategy, the breadth of it and the scope of it can extend far further than pretty much any other company out there at the moment. I mean, there may be a few corner cases that you might be able to highlight. You know, last time you brought up, Google, but that's probably not a good equivalent, especially given that Google's not really in the similar places. Lenovo is in the ecosystem, but that's what makes Cura really sort of special. That orchestration piece, that overlay, and it makes them actually in that regard, maybe broader than what Apple has done. And you know,

Anurag Agrawal:

absolutely true.

Leonard Lee:

A lot of folks have this misconception that Apple is behind on ai. No, they're not. if you ever bothered to study their stack. They are pretty damn advanced. And probably if you look at the split ecosystem that is the non-Apple ecosystem, to be able to bridge those two, platform, universes is a frigging big deal. And we know that Lenovo has. Invested quite a bit. smart connect is one, one of the key bridges that they've brought to market, and then now they're extending on top of that. So when you look at cross device, cross-platform, you establish that, then you can have the platform, cross device ai. And so that's that unique story behind Kira, which may not get fully appreciated. we're talking about it now here.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

Out and outside of this conversation, it probably is not gonna be all that well understood.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah. And and also right, right now, right? I mean, if you go to any device. There are tons of options on what you use for ai, just simple for chatting. Same

Leonard Lee:

with Apple too,

Prakash Sangam:

and, and you get confused which one, two eyes, which one is good, which one is bad. So I, I think the key thing, which a lot of people are not, appreciating is being that single interface on the back end. It could use Gemini, it could use copilot, it could use, you know, anthropic or, you know, other, and I think it also uses the,

Leonard Lee:

yeah, yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

A few others. So being like a single point of interface for the user for. All ai, which is personalized based on all of your background and contextualized. I think there is nothing like that out there, and not anybody is even close to offering something like that. Probably Apple if they tried, enough, but they're not there yet,

Anurag Agrawal:

yeah, yeah. No, you are right. because the way I think about this is that, Levora, actually addresses a core user problem, right? Because today, users exist in multiple digital states, right?

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

your work, your personal simul simultaneously, yet their data does not. So Lenovo Kira's primary differentiator. Is its ability to be a single intelligence.

Leonard Lee:

Mm-hmm.

Anurag Agrawal:

That travels with the user. And the true differentiator lies in Lenovo Kira's ability to construct across device data substrate rather than just indexing files. And we talked about that a lot during the RA meeting. Rather than just indexing files, it builds a dynamic graph.

Prakash Sangam:

Mm-hmm.

Anurag Agrawal:

Of user

Prakash Sangam:

graph.

Anurag Agrawal:

Connecting a document viewed on, say a think pad to a related message received on a Motorola smartphone. I think once people start to see the utility of it, the usefulness of it. I think it can really take off, right? Because it provides that productivity layer.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

Which every user actually is looking for these days

Prakash Sangam:

and it's your one, single thing to do, right?

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

multiple sources, multiple applications, multiple devices, it's like one thing where you get access to everything that is you related to you.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, Lenovo, I know we are talking a lot about Le way too much, but the thing is, it's a big deal.

Leonard Lee:

It is a big deal

Anurag Agrawal:

it's a big deal because, you know, the sphere was not just marketing, I think it was a statement of intent. Right. And, Lenovo is clearly of all the PC OEMs, in fact of all the OEMs, is clearly the most experimental.

Leonard Lee:

Oh, yeah, yeah,

Anurag Agrawal:

the our edition PCs, you know, based on Intel Are no longer just laptops. Yeah. With that, with that smart share.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

Correct, correct. Correct. And the, yeah, rollable, the real wow factor was the Legion Pro, I think it was the, the rollable concept.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah,

Anurag Agrawal:

Seeing a screen expand horizontally.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

From a 16 to to 2 24 4, yeah. It is a game changer, right? Yeah. This is something I distinctly remember I had mentioned to Dell six years ago. I said, you know what? I need something that can expand horizontally, because that's where it'll be, you know? Okay. And then

Leonard Lee:

you mean vertically or horizontally? Vertically. Horizontally. Oh, oh, okay.

Prakash Sangam:

No, the legion is horizontal.

Leonard Lee:

okay. Legion. Legion, okay.

Prakash Sangam:

You got, I mean, they told me it's a concept PI said, no, you shouldn't be wasting tying it down. Get outta the market. I think we'll sell hot cakes, right?

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah. but I think not many people really talked about the Lenovo qubit, you know, the new, it was seen at the sphere. Right. They had a pretty good demo of it, right? Which is the new AI orchestrator that acts as the brain for the home, or the small office managing local LLMs across all the devices. I think that is really, really powerful, right? So I think it is good, but,

Leonard Lee:

so,

Anurag Agrawal:

yeah.

Leonard Lee:

And maybe this is a lesson for everyone else, because everyone plays a good. Quote unquote hybrid AI game. Yeah. But there's a few companies that are really well equipped to make that happen. So, you know, I guess this is really why we're talking about Lenovo and not talking that much about Dell or hp because while they're strong on the enterprise side The continuum that they can play is not as broad as what Lenovo is. And you know, Lenovo is very cognizant of this.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah. And they're open to experiment. They're open to experiment and take risks and then kill some things

Anurag Agrawal:

that, I mean, they, they, one, one interesting thing about Lenovo is that one year they showed, that this is a concept.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

Then they kind of move on and say, okay, next year you go, Hey, this is turned into a product. Yeah. But a different product from the concept. One of the interesting things, so, so let's. Talk. I

Leonard Lee:

thought you were, you weren't good at this honor. you're like a pro.

Anurag Agrawal:

You are being too kind. Having done this a few times with you guys. Maybe, you're more

Leonard Lee:

natural.

Anurag Agrawal:

You, you, you,

Prakash Sangam:

I think you are ready

Anurag Agrawal:

to

Prakash Sangam:

start your own podcast

Anurag Agrawal:

now. Oh my God.

Leonard Lee:

ready for it.

Anurag Agrawal:

Quality. Your, your quality is rubbing off on me. Yeah. But I think I want to bridge the gap between Dell and Lenovo here for a moment, because Dell at the, let's give them a

Leonard Lee:

little bit of love. Okay. Let's

Anurag Agrawal:

give them a little bit of love. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So Dell, I think, is playing a return to root strategy. What I mean by that, that they've completely revitalized the XPS line, bringing back the physical function. They've got the XPS logo at the, on the chassis itself. But the real story with Dell, I mean XPS line. Absolutely. I love it. and they're, they're leaning into the, this Panther, Lake architecture.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

To make SPX, 13, the thinnest ever. But the real story for Dell is their ultra sharp 52 inch six K hub monitor. Oh, amazing. Amazing, amazing monitor. Right. so where I wanted to bridge the gap between Dell and Lenovo, because Lenovo showed a monitor with some software mechanics behind it, which was like a health monitor.

Leonard Lee:

Oh, yeah, yeah,

Anurag Agrawal:

yeah. Yes. You know, we saw that, right, right. Yeah. I think it was at the, at the Brooklyn Bowl we saw that, that there were. That it was monitoring your, your posture, your eyes and everything like that so that it could give you a health score whether you need to take a break and things like that or not. So I was saying that hey, if you combine that with the 52 inch monitor, the hub monitor, the six K hub mi that Dell rolled out, I think that the two would make absolutely fantastic. And hp, I will quickly just talk about hp. I think HP took the biggest form factor risk, I think they call it the elite board, G one A. I mean, they're numbing Noman. The naming convention is absolutely horrendous.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah,

Anurag Agrawal:

but they call it the elite board G one A. It's the full AI PC built entirely inside a keyboard. No tower, no laptop, just a 67 50 gram or one kilo. Keyboard with a Ryzen AI tip. That you plug into a screen.

Leonard Lee:

Love it.

Anurag Agrawal:

that's what it is, right?

Leonard Lee:

Yeah, I wanna circle back really quickly to, Qualcomm and the earlier comment about the 80 tops and, something that I highlighted on the recent a MD call, and, Prakash, you had that a little bit teed off, but Qualcomm is taking a different stance. It's notable, right? And, one of the reasons why I asked Jack the question that I did was, what is the philosophy and is clear that Qualcomm is looking at AgTech, in a different way where I, I see Intel and a MD, like you said, Prash, they're around the 50 tops range for the MPU. Yep. So they're going kind of Mpu light, even though this year, Qualcomm, with the X two series, including the plus. have beefed up not only the GPU, but they've doubled down on the MPU. So their whole vision for, and the bets that they're making from a design standpoint are, based on some notion of ag agentic ai. And so there's a whole assumption set that goes with that. And that's what I was trying to ask Jack, actually. That's what I asked the Intel folks as well. And, I think Qualcomm is a bit more visionary in what they're looking at. I think a lot of that is afforded by their mobile roots

Prakash Sangam:

heritage.

Leonard Lee:

You know, when you talk about the ISVs and the experience with the MPU, Qualcomm has much more, you know, MD and Intel will say that they, well, we've had an MPU for a long time. It's like, yeah, but you haven't really done what Qualcomm has had to do in mobile with the MPU because, the pioneers of this are Qualcomm and Apple. Right? And then arguably Huawei, Huawei will jump in if they were here and say, Hey, we did it too. So these are the companies that have the long legacy in AI and digital signal processing and intelligence. and so they have the DNA. And so it's interesting to see that juxtaposition, right? When you, what the traditional XX 86 guys are doing versus folks with the arm, if you wanna call it the arm snap dragging camp that has more of the mobile information

Prakash Sangam:

actually if this Kier becomes big on laptops and phones.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

And I think Qualcomm has. A lot to gain from it because they're the best NPU on laptop, and the best n ps and the associates is on the smartphone side. So I think it'll really benefit them.

Leonard Lee:

yeah, I, but I really, it really depends. I mean, the footprint, camera footprint I think is a lot lighter. and I think, you know, just in terms of, let's say ai. MPU bound AI support, they'll probably, they might have differentiation there where, you know, the X 86 guys will argue, yeah. Has compatibility issues, which I don't think are as

Prakash Sangam:

big. So, so, so, so, so I think the issue probably, we'll have to see, it'll be on X 86 Z right now, but if the utilization goes through the roof, then question will be whether like for 50 or 60 is the maximum, tops that NPU from EMD has, or even,

Leonard Lee:

yeah, yeah. So

Prakash Sangam:

then, then you can see a differentiation appearing right in user experience. if Kira goes, really big and then it needs more processing power, then you see otherwise, if it is very light, then you know, the difference between at and p versus 50, 60 and P will not be that big.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah,

Anurag Agrawal:

we talk about this at Tops and 40 Tops, I think there are obviously many naysayers, right, who talk about, say, what does at tops give me? What if 40 tops it doesn't give me, right? Yeah. So

Prakash Sangam:

I mean, that, that's to, to see that difference. You need very intense workloads.

Anurag Agrawal:

Correct.

Prakash Sangam:

Then you'll see the difference. Right. And if you, for example, if you're larger models, yeah. If you're driving, Honda Civic and Ferrari, with, where this maximum speed limit is 40 miles per hour, then you don't really see the difference between them, right.

Leonard Lee:

It's more like, comparing a sedan with a large truck in terms of workload, How heavy of a model or how large or how many models simultaneously you can run. So, you know, the thesis is different, right?

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

and so that philosophy is gonna inform how you design your SOCs, how you structure your roadmap, and, there's a clear differentiation or difference. And I don't mean differentiation being one, being more competitive than the other. Philosophically, there's a, sort of diversity in the A IPC, chip play at the moment. But, no, I wanted to talk about automotive. Did you guys ever make it over to the West Hall, by the way?

Anurag Agrawal:

no, I did not,

Prakash Sangam:

I don't see too much.

Leonard Lee:

one of the interesting things that I saw was very few OEMs. last year there weren't that many OEMs. I think the last remnant was two years ago. it was, Mercedes-Benz, and that was the one occasion that I, managed to bump into a Nvidia guy. even though they, you know, Nvidia makes a big presence, they just don't have a booth except for now this whole, foundry area that they have in the font glue, but they're usually embedded with a lot of their partners and their customers.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

But, you know, the,

Prakash Sangam:

what they used to have though, I think from last year, two, three years ago, they used to have,

Anurag Agrawal:

I think it may be because, you know, within two months from now, they're having their own GTC, right?

Prakash Sangam:

Correct.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

There's no point spending too much money

Leonard Lee:

Yeah. They'll have GTC, but also, just overall, there's this increased interest in, the AXS and, as a service type infrastructure versus. the autonomous vehicle systems and EVs, that's dropped off significantly. And then you saw, Waymo actually had a really huge

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

Um, display area. So anyways, that was one of the things that I noticed from the automotive standpoint.

Anurag Agrawal:

did you manage to go to the booth? I think that's the Sony and Honda collaboration. yeah. I did. they're coming out with a hundred K car.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah,

Anurag Agrawal:

yeah,

Leonard Lee:

yeah. And, they also have a SUV now. Um, so yeah, that, I think that they're coming out with, so yeah. It, I mean, it's a, it's a good looking car. I mean, lots of electronics.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah. It's like 28 speakers that they keep seeing the advertisements. If you're, yeah, it's pretty amazing. I mean, that's the one for you, but they pay. Hundred K for that audio experience, I think is a question.

Leonard Lee:

I'll take a test drive one of these days. let's see what else is there? Okay. we've already kind of touched on it a little bit when we talked about Lenovo quite a bit already, but, tech World, 2025 or 26,

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah. I was not so sure whether it was a good idea or not. I think on the hindsight, they got so much of attraction, uh, so much of attention away from CS onto their show. Maybe it's a good idea, doing it at Spear and, at same time as cs. And you, they said like they had 1 41 60,000, is it one 40,000, folks at the spear. I still miss. In depth, conversations with the specific leads and such, which probably happens more at G-I-A-C-G-A-C. Yeah. But, but as a marketing event, outward marketing event, I think, it was success combining that with CS and taking some shine away from CSU, in my view.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah. Well, I am definitely glad that they didn't clump A-G-I-A-C with

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

World.

Prakash Sangam:

Oh yeah.

Leonard Lee:

They just, they're like water and oil and water, they just don't mix. And for the analysts, it's a bad, I don't think it's a good experience. I think having it separately is totally. totally awesome. And, uh, uh, tech world, the way I, yeah, I mean, how do you top what they did this year is, I guess

Prakash Sangam:

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, doing combining with cs, ended up,

Leonard Lee:

and they didn't do it during CES per se.

Prakash Sangam:

was part of

Leonard Lee:

in the

Prakash Sangam:

evening, right? No, no. It was part of a CS keynote, right? Keynote,

Leonard Lee:

yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

So it is part of cs, but, I think it was effective in my view.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

I think the most important fact about, obviously the kind of announced it to the world that they're there.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

And along with the sponsorship of fifa, I think it goes a long way, right?

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

But the more important thing on having attended several different keynotes at the sphere, now I can confidently say this was the best. From an experience point of view and content point of view.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

Right. I mean, just the use of the sphere, acoustics and the haptics and everything.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

and the graphics, the way they designed it in partnership with Sphere Studios. Right.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

I think it was absolutely mind boggling and above all, why was having fun?

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

Right. I mean, he was able to articulate his Levo one story. He got the IDG speak. He got the ISG speak. He got the SG speak. Yeah. There were no, no flashy customer stories. Nothing at all. And he got. The entire chip industry there.

Leonard Lee:

Oh yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

all say, and it made everybody stay for that long. Yeah. Right. And all came out. It's like absolutely mind blowing.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah. and also I think, uh, you know, we, this story of how Leno Leno technology kind of powers, spear. And I think that that will added a good color to the story, I think.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah. Yeah.

Prakash Sangam:

Electric spear. Yeah. Spear was not just a gimmicky marketing, but it is much more meaningful than just, that, right.

Leonard Lee:

So, any other last things that you guys want to share with the audience? I think we covered a lot. I mean, a lot of Lenovo stuff here, but I think,

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah,

Leonard Lee:

a lot, a lot of things for a lot of, different audiences to reflect on.

Prakash Sangam:

yeah, so yeah, one thing I say is CCES the name. It's no longer a consumer show, in my view. It is kind of the tech show, not just consumer. There's a lot of, enterprise and industrial because of all the physical AI and everything. So I think, that's one thing I saw. It's no longer, like if you're an enterprise guy, you would say, why would I go to CES? But now, no matter what, if you're in tech, you have to go. That's the reason it's becoming so big.

Leonard Lee:

Yeah.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah. So I have to tell you a story. So it was way back in 1990 or 19 91, 92, I was in India and I was leading an organization called May not leading an organization, mate. It is the IT Industries Association in India, and I was the executive in charge there, I led a delegation to Las Vegas. I'm not sure whether it was called Context that time or was it called CS that time, but I had come and the first article that I ever wrote of my experience about cs, I still remember the title of it, don't Laugh. It said From lab dances to laptops.

Leonard Lee:

That was a different era.

Anurag Agrawal:

that was a different era. But, but Prash, you're right. I think for the technology OEMs, right? Regarding cs. The message is clear. the clamshell era is not over, but it's not the only game in town. We are entering a period of modular autonomy and extending that. If I look at all the other health tech, the home tech and everything that I saw, I said, okay, what would I buy at home to use For myself or home? I think maybe two or three out of 10 were the only thing that were really useful that I would say, okay, you know what? I can really Yeah. Make use of it, right? And I cannot, for the life of me have everything plugged into USBC ports all over my house. It's not possible.

Leonard Lee:

No. Yeah. Yeah. You can be over convenienced as I put it.

Anurag Agrawal:

Yeah.

Leonard Lee:

what I've discovered is if you have too many of these vacuum cleaning robots around that house, the occupants of the house. Tend to just drop things on the floor and make a mess. And that becomes a status quo. I mean, it's the convenience. You just assume, Hey, I got a robot that's gonna pick it up,

Anurag Agrawal:

turn into a swab. Correct. And there were vacuum, there were robots, the vacuum cleaner robots who said, Hey, okay, we, can I identify a pet? Okay, fine. Then we will slow down or we can identify a crib, so we will quiet down. And there were robots that could climb up the stairs or wa or come down the stairs, say, by the time it climbs up to the, to the top of the, the 13 steps I have, I might as well. Lift my own vacuum cleaner and do it and be done.

Leonard Lee:

Yes. And by the way, if my wife ever watches this, she's going to kill me. And so on that note, gentlemen, thank you so much. This is really fun. it's really wonderful to have you share your insights from CES 2026 as well as the Lenovo tech world. 2026. It was great to spend time with both of you there at these events. And to our audience, thanks for tuning in and please reach out to, Prakash at tantra analyst@www.tantraanalyst.com. He also has a podcast, which is Tantra's mantra, right? He has a lot of special guests. I probably pronounce that really horribly, but you get my idea.

Prakash Sangam:

Yeah, you did.

Leonard Lee:

And then of course, the illustrious Chief Global Analyst of the universe honor Rock Agaral of Tech Aisle. You can find his works as well as the research that his organization does@techaisle.com. And so please reach out to both of them on LinkedIn. And gentlemen, once again, thank you so much e everyone please subscribe to our podcast. And this particular episode, will be featured on the Next Curve YouTube channel. Check out the audio version if you don't, like the video stuff and you wanna take us on the road, on Buzz bpr and find us on your favorite podcast platform. Also, subscribe to the next curve research portal@www.next-curve.com, and our substack for the tech and industry insights that matter. Thank you all. We'll see you next time. Thank you.

Prakash Sangam:

All right, good to be here.

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