DreamWorks Animation has taken a significant step forward in its strategic alliance with Lenovo, establishing the tech giant as its go-to provider for compute services, workstations, and solutions. This development marks an important milestone in their relationship, elevating it to new heights with Lenovo’s comprehensive solutions and services. By integrating devices, data center infrastructure, and services into a unified Lenovo ecosystem, DreamWorks has acquired the computational power needed to keep pace with the expanding demands of its creative and technical teams—an essential advantage in today’s ever-evolving environment. At the heart of this partnership is a mutual dedication to service excellence, ensuring that DreamWorks continues to receive robust support through each phase of its business transformations.
Lenovo’s strategic services have already significantly impacted DreamWorks’ production workflows and business infrastructure. For instance, using Lenovo Neptune liquid cooling, DreamWorks achieved a 20% increase in performance, resulting in improved render speeds and faster iteration cycles. Additionally, animation programs running on the ThinkStation P620s demonstrated a 25% performance boost compared to previous workstations, leading to quicker load times and an enhanced experience for artists. Furthermore, with 98% utilization in its data center and 300 million compute hours dedicated to "The Wild Robot," Lenovo’s infrastructure scaled effectively to meet unprecedented creative demands.
Kate Swanborg, Senior Vice President of Technology Communications and Strategic Alliances at DreamWorks Animation, expressed that their long-standing relationship and Lenovo’s consistent delivery excellence made expanding the collaboration a natural progression. This enhancement provides DreamWorks with the flexibility and operational scale necessary to fulfill its business aspirations and produce world-class films.
Ken Wong, Executive Vice President and President of Lenovo’s Solutions and Services Group, emphasized the importance of advanced, scalable technologies and services in powering intricate creative workflows and meeting the demands of modern content production. He highlighted the strategic impact of a trusted technology partnership in delivering the performance, reliability, and innovation required to push the boundaries of what is possible in filmmaking and business.
Unified Innovation: Expanding the Lenovo–DreamWorks Technology Ecosystem
Lenovo delivers more than just high-performance hardware from strategy to 24/7 operations—it offers a services-first ecosystem that allows DreamWorks’ technology teams to remain focused. Lenovo’s scalable service model encompasses everything from daily support to critical artist compute deployment, ensuring that enterprise environments like DreamWorks possess the tools, agility, and responsiveness needed at every stage of production.
ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series Workstations are engineered to provide the performance and responsiveness required in any setting, including modern film production, making them ideal for artists, technical directors, and other professionals.
ThinkSystem Servers and HPC Infrastructure power compute-intensive rendering and animation pipelines.
NEW: TruScale Infrastructure as a Service enables DreamWorks to scale compute resources on demand while avoiding substantial capital expenditures. This offering supports the complete ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile portfolio and is tailored to align infrastructure capacity with production timelines.
Lenovo TruScale provides DreamWorks with the control and security of on-premises infrastructure while offering 24/7 proactive monitoring, managed services, and expert support. As part of its services portfolio, Lenovo also supports DreamWorks’ sustainability goals by helping retire outdated systems and transition to more energy-efficient technologies. Infrastructure is only part of the story. DreamWorks relies on Lenovo’s Premier Support Plus for round-the-clock assistance, swift resolutions, and minimal downtime. In a high-pressure creative environment, responsive support and expert planning are crucial to reducing complexity and helping teams meet aggressive production deadlines.
Proven Performance: Technology That Moves at the Speed of Imagination
DreamWorks’ alliance with Lenovo is a tale of creative ambition brought to life through state-of-the-art technology. During its most technically demanding productions, DreamWorks depended on Lenovo’s high-performance computing (HPC) solution—featuring Neptune liquid cooling—to accelerate workflows and scale rendering. Neptune liquid cooling boosted core performance within the existing data center space, enhancing both energy efficiency and system stability, allowing the studio to achieve more with less. Just as critical was the ability to iterate in real-time. Lenovo’s infrastructure enabled artists to explore, refine, and bring complex digital environments to life with greater speed and precision.
Lenovo’s professional services have also empowered DreamWorks to scale quickly and smoothly. A HPC deployment anticipated to take a week was completed in just 1.5 days. From custom hardware integration to white-glove service and proactive support, every deployment is designed for seamless execution and immediate production readiness.
This robust technology and services foundation now supports an exciting new lineup of DreamWorks films, including "The Bad Guys 2" (August 2025) and the newly announced "Forgotten Island" (September 2026). It will also play a central role in the creation of "Shrek 5" (December 2026), further demonstrating Lenovo’s impact on some of the studio’s most iconic and technically ambitious projects.
Looking ahead, Lenovo assists DreamWorks in streamlining complex operational and infrastructure processes, as well as predictive analytics and intelligent workflows—powered by Lenovo’s AI-optimized infrastructure that includes workstations, data center systems, and TruScale services. While DreamWorks does not employ AI for image generation, the studio is researching its potential to increase production pipeline efficiency to further enable their artists to focus on their creativity. This integrated ecosystem bridges individual creativity with end-to-end studio orchestration, helping DreamWorks move from concept to screen with greater speed, agility, and innovation.
Bill Ballew, Chief Technology Officer for DreamWorks Animation, remarked that the extension of the Lenovo partnership is a key component of their technology strategy. The Lenovo hardware solutions are incredibly powerful, and they are now looking forward to engaging with Lenovo’s AI teams to identify solutions that will optimize their compute infrastructure even further.
Ken Wong added that as production strategies evolve, the Lenovo-DreamWorks partnership serves as a blueprint for how enterprises can leverage integrated technology to scale intelligently and meet the demands of creative and operational excellence.
Learn More about How Lenovo Helps Turn Bold Ideas into Breakthrough Innovations
Discover what’s possible with Lenovo. Explore a comprehensive portfolio of workstations, data center solutions, and enterprise services designed to scale with creative and AI ambitions. Unlock the Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage to accelerate AI across edge, cloud, and on-prem environments. Rely on Lenovo for expert support, from strategy to 24/7 operations. Start smart with AI Discover—a guided consultation to identify use cases, assess readiness, and drive faster outcomes.
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