DreamWorks Animation expands Preferred Technology Provider relationship with Lenovo -- deepening a trusted partnership to include Lenovo’s cutting-edge services and solutions.
Lenovo’s end-to-end technology portfolio, including high-performance workstations, High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure, and digital transformation services, allows DreamWorks to push the boundaries of creative innovation without compromising speed, quality, or imagination.
MORRISVILLE, N.C., May 27, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DreamWorks Animation is deepening its collaboration with Lenovo, naming the company its preferred compute services, workstation, and solutions provider. This marks a milestone in a trusted partnership now strengthened by Lenovo’s solutions and services. By bringing together devices, data center infrastructure, and services into a seamless Lenovo ecosystem, DreamWorks has the compute power to scale with the ever-growing demands of its artistic and technical teams -- an essential advantage in an increasingly dynamic landscape. At the core of this collaboration is a shared commitment to service excellence, ensuring DreamWorks remains supported through every business transformation.
Lenovo’s strategic services and solutions have already delivered a quantifiable impact to DreamWorks’ production pipelines and business infrastructure:
• A 20% performance increase was achieved using Lenovo Neptune™ liquid cooling, improving render speeds and enabling faster iteration cycles.
• A 25% performance increase of animation programs running on the ThinkStation™ P620s compared to previous workstations, leading to faster loading times and an overall better artist experience.
• With 98% utilization in its data center and 300 million compute hours for The Wild Robot, Lenovo infrastructure scaled to meet unprecedented creative demands.
"Based on our long-standing relationship and Lenovo’s consistent delivery excellence, expanding our collaboration was a natural next step," said Kate Swanborg, SVP of Technology Communications and Strategic Alliances, DreamWorks Animation. "This deepens our collaboration and gives DreamWorks the flexibility and operational scale we need to fuel our business ambitions and deliver world-class filmmaking."
"This expanded relationship underscores the vital role of advanced, scalable technologies and services in powering complex creative workflows and meeting the demands of modern content production," added Ken Wong, Executive Vice President and President, Solutions and Services Group, Lenovo. "It highlights the strategic impact of a trusted technology partnership in delivering the performance, reliability, and innovation required to push the boundaries of what’s possible in filmmaking and what’s possible in business."
Unified Innovation: Expanding the Lenovo–DreamWorks Technology Ecosystem
From strategy to 24/7 operations, Lenovo delivers more than just high-performance hardware -- it provides a services-first ecosystem that keeps DreamWorks’ technology teams focused. Lenovo’s scalable service model covers everything from day-to-day support to critical artist compute deployment, ensuring that enterprise environments like DreamWorks have the tools, agility, and responsiveness needed at every stage of production.
ThinkStation™ and ThinkPad™ P Series Workstations – designed to deliver 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 – powering compute-intensive rendering and animation pipelines.
NEW: TruScale™ Infrastructure as a Service – enabling DreamWorks to scale compute resources on demand while avoiding large capital expenditures. The offering supports the full ThinkSystem™ and ThinkAgile™ portfolio and is tailored to align infrastructure capacity with production timelines.
Lenovo TruScale™ allows DreamWorks to retain the control and security of on-premises infrastructure while benefiting from 24/7 proactive monitoring, managed services, and expert support. As part of its services portfolio, Lenovo also supports DreamWorks’ sustainability goals -- helping retire outdated systems and transition to more energy-efficient technologies.
And Infrastructure is only part of the story. DreamWorks depends on Lenovo’s Premier Support Plus for round-the-clock help, fast fixes, and minimal downtime. In a high-pressure creative environment, responsive support and expert planning are essential to reducing complexity and helping teams meet aggressive production goals.
Proven Performance: Technology That Moves at the Speed of Imagination
DreamWorks’ partnership with Lenovo is a story of creative ambition brought to life through cutting-edge technology. During its most technically demanding productions, DreamWorks relied 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 pre-existing data center space, enhancing both energy efficiency and system stability, and enabled the studio to do more with less. Just as critical was the ability to iterate in real time. With Lenovo’s infrastructure, artists could explore, refine, and bring complex digital environments to life with greater speed and precision.
Lenovo’s professional services have also enabled DreamWorks to scale quickly and smoothly. A HPC deployment expected 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 built for seamless execution and immediate production-readiness.
This robust technology and services foundation now supports a bold new slate 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 productions.
Looking ahead, Lenovo supports 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 use AI in the generation of its imagery, the studio is researching its potential to increase production pipeline efficiency to further enable their artists to focus on their creativity. This integrated ecosystem would bridge individual creativity with end-to-end studio orchestration, helping DreamWorks move from concept to screen with greater speed, agility, and innovation.
"This extension of the Lenovo partnership is a key component of our technology strategy," said Bill Ballew, CTO for DreamWorks Animation. "The Lenovo hardware solutions are incredibly powerful, and we are now looking forward to engaging with their AI teams to identify solutions that will optimize our compute infrastructure even further."
"As production strategy evolves, 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," Wong added.
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