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The leader of Lenovo’s North America business called the rising backlash against data centers “one of the several constraints” faced by the tech industry, but he said the Chinese PC giant has not seen any slowdown in AI demand. Ryan McCurdy, Lenovo’s North America president, made the comments in a recent interview with CRN, in which he discussed the “rapidly expanding customer base” that helped fuel a 98 percent year-over-year increase to a record $8.5 billion for the vendor’s data center business, the Infrastructure Solutions Group. McCurdy, who is also an executive vice president at Lenovo, likened the data center opposition to other constraints such as components and power shortages that have created hurdles for companies seeking to build new AI infrastructure. “I think there’s a lot of things that are going to be challenging to navigate as this builds up over the next decade,” he said on Aug. 18. This is a question I will be asking anyone in the data center business, not just Lenovo, as it has become an unavoidable topic regardless of how you view the issue. What I'm watching out for is the impact this will have on channel partners: Will it mainly impact larger data centers, of which the channel has some but not a whole lot of exposure? Will the movement trickle down to smaller projects? And based on the level of impact, how will the channel respond? A greater focus on edge computing and AI PCs? Something else? Even if there's not much impact at all on the channel, that is still a story to me. What's most important is the truth of what actually happens. When you read my interview with McCurdy at Lenovo, you will get a sense that demand for AI remains red-hot, particularly in the enterprise and SMB segments, even the executive says it's still "early innings" for such customers: https://lnkd.in/gQhcVxQD

As enterprises move beyond AI experimentation, Anthropic customers increasingly want solution providers that can demonstrate clear returns on investment and proven case studies deploying AI agents at scale, Anthropic Channel Chief Steve Corfield told CRN. “Partners are learning as they go, and they’re getting some great [references] from their customer-zero work but also the work that they’re doing with their customers,” Corfield said. Corfield said solution providers in the Claude Partner Network have helped customers with everything from deployment to measuring AI outcomes. Here’s more of what Corfield had to say about Anthropic’s burgeoning channel partner program:

About five months after Anthropic launched its Claude Partner Network, the AI upstart is focused on providing solution providers with resources for new certifications that help with differentiation in the fast-growing ecosystem. Anthropic Channel Chief Steve Corfield told CRN that Anthropic has reached about 85,000 total certifications issued across nearly 2,000 partner companies. Here are more details from Corfield and solution provider perspective from Tony Olzak, chief technology officer at Trace3:

In an interview with Dylan Martin, Lenovo North America President Ryan McCurdy said the vendor’s data center business is winning over a wider constituency of customers that includes multinationals, large corporations, SMBs and public sector firms. Here are details from McCurdy and partner perspective from Bob Venero, CEO of Future Tech Enterprise, Inc., and Chris Bogan, vice president of alliances at Mark III Systems: Lenovo Partners – North America

VMware by Broadcom is expected to launch its new VMware AI Factory alongside VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and is adding new AI model validations from Google, NVIDIA and others for VCF at VMware Explore this week in Las Vegas. The company is also unleashing three new VMware Private AI services to help make AI operational, governable and cost-effective. In an interview with CRN, Broadcom’s VCF leader Krish Prasad said AI Factory and other #VMwareExplore launches are “going to be huge” for partners and customers. Here’s what you need to know about the five biggest launches at VMware Explore today:

In the latest episode of CRN In Depth, CRN Senior Editor Joseph Kovar discusses Cisco's decision to increase its quote validity period to 14 days for better flexibility and stability. You can watch the entire episode here: https://lnkd.in/eccVZfvH.

In this edition, we take a look at why Cisco has extended its UCS compute price protection and price quote validity to 14 days. Plus: - Why Intel hit a 31-year CPU market share low - The companies named to our 2026 Fast Growth 150 list, and more

Red Hat CEO Matt Hicks sees opportunities for solution providers navigating the component supply chain crisis and heightened security concerns around the capabilities of AI models like Anthropic’s Mythos. As solution providers and their customers navigate rising memory prices and constrained supply, the need for getting more out of existing infrastructure creates an opportunity for Red Hat and its ecosystem. “If you look at the core of where we started with OpenShift, it was an efficiency play,” Hicks told CRN. “[This is] a great area for partners. Instead of just assuming a deal or progress can’t happen because the hardware is delayed, rethinking that to say, ‘OK, if this is AI hardware, I’m going to have to be pretty good at containers to utilize it well.’” Read Wade Tyler Millward’s interview with Hicks to learn more. Plus: Hear from Weston Brown, chief technology officer of solution provider Arctiq, and Red Hat Channel Chief Kevin Kennedy: Red Hat Partners

Everpure said on Wednesday that the all-flash storage and data management technology developer has seen growth not only despite component shortages and rising prices but in part because of them. The company’s Chairman and CEO, Charles Giancarlo, told financial analysts on the company’s second fiscal quarter 2027 quarterly financial conference call that total contract value for its Evergreen//One storage subscription service has accelerated to a billion-dollar run rate for fiscal 2027. “[This] indicates that our market-share-gain momentum is even greater than our revenue growth implies,” Giancarlo said. Joseph Kovar has the details: Everpure Partners

CrowdStrike has all the right elements to position its comprehensive Falcon platform as the go-to way to secure the usage of AI and agentic tools going forward, CrowdStrike co-founder and CEO George Kurtz said during the vendor’s quarterly call on Wednesday. Kurtz said it’s becoming increasingly clear that the cybersecurity giant is ahead of rivals when it comes to providing advanced security in the AI era, particularly in the wake of Anthropic’s disclosure of details about its Claude Mythos cyber model earlier this year. Kyle Alspach has the details: