Manufacturers have already automated what is repeatable. The gains that remain sit at the edges: product mix shifts, misoriented parts and recurring exceptions that fixed logic can’t handle. With 69% of Asia/Pacific manufacturers already running physical AI in production or pilot, and 95% of manufacturers worldwide expecting to increase investment over the next two years, the question has moved from whether to adopt to where it pays back and how to scale it.

This session presents IDC’s latest research on where manufacturers are placing their bets. It covers which use cases are moving from pilot to production, what separates the leaders from those stuck in pilot, and how peers are deciding what to build in-house and what to source. Attendees will leave with a clear benchmark of where their organisation stands against the region.

A physical AI pilot that works in a lab is not the same as one that holds up across shifts, lines and sites. This session looks at how Lenovo works with manufacturers to find the interventions worth automating, prove duty cycle, exception handling and safe recovery under real production conditions, and scale without being held back by legacy equipment and systems.

Drawing on customer use cases, the session shows what it takes to keep gains in throughput, quality and availability after the first deployment. That includes monitoring, predictive maintenance and support aligned to production hours, and how a lead provider and the manufacturer’s own team can divide ownership. Attendees will take away a practical view of what a scalable deployment looks like and where a partner adds the most value.

Open peer-level conversation among senior manufacturing leaders, moderated by IDC. Rather than another round of presentations, it is a chance to compare notes on what is working, what’s stalled, and what you would do differently. Discussion will be guided by the questions below, and attendees are encouraged to bring their own live challenges.