San Francisco, Aug 5 (IANS): Intel and Lenovo on Monday announced a multi-year collaboration to accelerate convergence of high-performance computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve world's most challenging problems.

Lenovo, the leading global system provider of "TOP500" supercomputers, would optimize Intel's full portfolio of HPC and AI hardware and software solutions to serve as the foundation for its market strategy.

"Our goal is to further accelerate innovation into the 'Exascale' era, aggressively waterfalling these solutions to scientists and businesses of all sizes to speed discovery and outcomes," Kirk Skaugen, executive vice president of Lenovo and president of Lenovo Data Center Group, said in a statement.

Lenovo's Neptune liquid cooling, in combination with the 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable platform, is already helping customers unlock new data insights.

Nearly 173 of the world's "TOP500" fastest supercomputers, spanning 19 markets, run on Lenovo servers.

Additionally, 17 of the world's top 25 research universities rely on Lenovo infrastructure.

"Intel is laser-focused on helping our customers spur innovation and discovery through the convergence of AI with HPC," said Navin Shenoy, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center Group.

The collaboration plans to focus on three areas: systems and solutions, software optimization for HPC and AI convergence and ecosystem enablement.