Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang has committed to ambitious new targets for R&D hiring and achieving net zero emissions. Credit: IDG UK Lenovo has committed to hiring 12,000 new research and development (R&D) professionals over the next three years. The announcement was made during Lenovo’s annual company kick-off, where chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang set out the company’s vision for the year ahead. Alongside the hiring commitment, Yang also said that R&D investment will be doubled during the 2022/23 financial year, as the company looks to stay ahead of new and emerging IT architectures. Last year, the Chinese-American tech giant hired 5,000 R&D workers to support research into what it calls “Client-Edge-Cloud-Network-Intelligence”. The newly announced hires will work on new hardware and software to help customers stay ahead of emerging technology trends, such as edge computing and the metaverse. “Our intention is to optimize between technology with quick market returns and foundational research, and between continuous improvement and breakthrough innovation,” Yang said. Yang also outlined Lenovo’s ongoing pledge to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, in line with the company’s Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) commitments. While Yang didn’t speak specifically about diversity and inclusion at today’s event, in Lenovo’s 2020/21 Environmental, Social, and Governance Report from earlier this year the company showed that it had managed to broaden its recruiting efforts and improve its onboarding process to hire tech workers from a wider variety of backgrounds. Related content feature Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build? Get the latest info on new preview builds of Windows 11 as they roll out to Windows Insiders. Now updated for Build 22635.3720 for the Beta Channel and Build 26120.770 for the Dev Channel, both released on June 7, 2024. By Preston Gralla Jun 07, 2024 264 mins Small and Medium Business Microsoft Windows 11 news DuckDuckGo launches anonymous AI chatbot The privacy-conscience search engine said it will not use information users input for training LLMs or in any other way reveal who queried the chatbot. By Lucas Mearian Jun 07, 2024 3 mins Chatbots Data Privacy Web Search news US chip export control rules circumvented by AI cloud services, says report Chinese companies are exploiting a loophole in export control rules that draft legislation introduced last year sought to close. By John Leyden Jun 07, 2024 4 mins Government Generative AI GPUs news How many jobs are available in technology in the US? Tech unemployment was down in May and job postings were higher than they've been for more than a year. By Lucas Mearian Jun 07, 2024 164 mins Remote Work Salaries Financial Services Industry Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe