Alberto Ruano (Madrid, 1967), leader in our country of one of the most relevant global technology companies, talks to us about how artificial intelligence and the chiaroscuro of the gaming boom will be implemented .
Graduated in Law from UNED and PDG (General Management Program) from IESE, Alberto Ruano has seventeen years of experience in the personal computing sector. In 2006 he was appointed CEO of Toshiba Spain, a position he held for seven years. Since June 2016, he has been the CEO of Lenovo Iberia.
They say that 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) are going to change everything. Do you agree with that statement?
What is going to happen is that everything will improve, and it will help us to be more productive. Young people are already immersed in all this; they take 5G for granted. When in my company we do job interviews, people over 35 years of age talk about salary, and those who are below that age ask you if they can work from home, if they are going to have a team with the best connectivity and that weighs little, of what model, if it is fashion or not, and how the mobile that we are going to provide will be. In the end, the implantation of artificial intelligence is determined by people’s knowledge , and its speed of acceptance will depend on when millennials, who do not move for salary, but because they are comfortable in their ecosystem, become part of the world of work. . They are the ones who will push us down that path. I have recently been to China, and I have seen a technologically super advanced society. I like living in a country like Spain, where leisure is given its importance, but I see other countries, such as the Nordics and Asians, that are more technologically advanced and I think that to improve society it would be good to carry out exchanges with those countries.
Why do I have the feeling that artificial intelligence is not reaching the computer world with the same speed and relevance as it does to mobiles?
I do not think it is like that. In Barcelona, for example, we have the Supercomputing Center, led by Lenovo, and which, among other things, is dedicated to researching and developing solutions to rare diseases, using AI, so that people can enjoy a better quality of life. What happens is that not everything is known. If you had asked me twenty years ago what was going to happen to desktop computers, I would have said they would disappear. But the desktop is a market that is growing today. The gaming sector, where we have a 17% market share, has caused computers to return to the rooms of the houses. When the laptop appeared, the computer disappeared from the room because it could be carried anywhere. And then comes the tablet, which cannibalizes the laptop. And then the smartphone comes out and cannibalizes the tablet. And today what happens is that they no longer cannibalize each other, and we each have four devices. So I think the relevance of artificial intelligence is not that it is found in the device itself, but rather around an ecosystem. And I tell you one thing: the most productive device is the computer, not the mobile phone.
Tell me about Lenovo and its relationship with artificial intelligence. Lenovo is a company that is very vertical.
When it comes to AI, we divide it into vertical sectors: education, health, culture, justice…, and we build on successful projects. With AI we try to make everything easier, more productive, healthier … to contribute something to society in the projects we develop. Artificial intelligence for Lenovo is, therefore, getting doctors to go to a hospital and have virus-free tablets and with them they can interact with the patient. Or, in hospitals, put smart devices in the rooms and the patient just says: “Call my family,” and can talk to her. What we need is for society to tell us what it needs and for us to develop it. Right now we are making an important change to go from being a company that sells iron, a product company, to one that does consulting.
To what extent has the boom in electronic games revived the consumer PC market?
From an entrepreneur point of view , it is fortunate that a vertical like gaming has been created, which hooks a lot of people and sells more expensive products with higher settings. Who can live today without having a mobile phone? No one except the children. The issue of gaming is entering society and houses to configure the computer room. But from a father’s point of view, it worries me, since technology is misused . We cannot have people locked up for hours and hours in a room playing games . Where is the coexistence? And the relationships? I think that companies are not taking this into account enough. I am the first to say quite loudly that we are not doing things well.
However, there are studies that say that gamers are not just children; there are also those with older ages. How is this situation to be addressed so that we do not have people locked in the rooms without relating to each other?
There are many gamers products that are not sold only for this group, since they are marketed for their benefits for other types of clients and solutions. In my social sphere, gamers are children, and that is what worries me. Do I know people my age who are gamer ? To nobody. I have three children and I see what happens. It’s okay that gaming exists, but in a controlled way.
Do you think Motorola –of the Lenovo group– has the capacity, not to be what it was, but to approach the sales level of Xiaomi or Oppo?
The growth of the companies has to be organic and natural. You cannot buy market shares or rent them. Forced things never go well. Motorola is a company that has joined the Lenovo group, and in many non-European countries we are number one or two. If you ask a child in Spain who Motorola is, they don’t know us. When I joined Lenovo, Motorola’s market share and relevance was not great. The first decision I made was to go to schools, to universities, to the education sector. And that has given us a lot of success. We have to work more with young people who do not recognize the brand, since people between 40 and 60 years old do know us. In benefits, we are equal to or better than the others.
Can the trade war between China and the United States affect Lenovo, which is a Chinese company, even if it is global?
Lenovo is a global, public company. We are and have factories in a lot of countries. And we keep oblivious to what is happening. It neither benefits us nor harms us. We are totally aseptic and we continue with our strategy. We are not going to decrease or grow because others decrease. We will grow because we make the right decisions and because we have an impressive product.
