Lenovo’s own investment group and wearable displays manufacturer Kopin Corporation have formed a joint venture named Lenovo New Vision. The combination of Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group’s (LCIG) global resources and Kopin’s wearable technology expertise hopes to grow the enterprise Augmented Reality market.
Since May 2016, the LCIG has been managing the initial $500 million from the Lenovo Capital Phase II Investment Fund in areas including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and Internet services. While the LCIG has supported a large number of startup companies, its latest venture is with Kopin Corporation, a leading developer and provider of wearable technologies, established in 1984. This creates a new subsidiary of LCIG called Lenovo New Vision which, according to the press release, ‘focuses on AR smart headsets for a broad range of enterprise applications’.
Both Lenovo and Kopin are separately showcasing VR and AR technologies at CES 2017, such as Lenovo’s VR headset prototype, and Kopin’s Whisper Voice Chip, a revolutionary speech recognition solution for wearables. The latter has been recognised as a CES 2017 Innovation Awards Honoree by the Consumer Technology Association, along with the Solos Smart Glasses using Black Pupil, the world’s smallest LCD module for smart glasses, as well as the K2000, the world’s highest speed, smallest form factor OLED MicroDisplay for VR.
“We are very excited to enter into a strategic relationship with Lenovo,” says Dr. John C.C. Fan, Kopin’s President and CEO. “By combining Kopin’s advanced wearable technology and Lenovo’s strength as a global IT and equipment solutions provider, both parties can accelerate the commercialization of AR products and succeed in the fast-growing China and global AR markets.”
In order to move the enterprise AR market forward, Kopin will provide a ‘small capital investment, industrial design solutions, and know-how to utilize key Kopin components to Lenovo New Vision, including the micro-displays, optics, software and Whisper Voice Chip’.
“AR/VR is the next generation technology that will change the world after PC Internet and mobile Internet”, says LCIG President George He. “It is a required technology investment direction for virtually every enterprise. We truly value the cooperation with Kopin, and believe that this cooperation can further accelerate the growth of the enterprise AR market by bringing users optimized products and services.”