R&D spree to find new growth engine

Lenovo Group Ltd said it plans to pour $1.2 billion into the research and development of artificial intelligence, the internet of things and big data over the next four years - as the Chinese tech group scrambles to breathe new life into its PC, smartphone and other hardware businesses.

Chairman Yang Yuanqing said in an interview with Japanese news outlet Nikkei that the Beijing-headquartered company aims to find a new growth engine through heavy R&D investment and partnerships with global giants such as Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

The company is expected to unveil a new handset that comes with Amazon's voice recognition technology Alexa, and it now already sells a smartphone that uses Google's Tango augmented reality computing platform