Lenovo confirms upcoming ThinkPad T16 will feature AMD Ryzen 6000

Same procedure as every year for the ThinkPad line of business laptops: At CES, Lenovo annually announces the updates of the ThinkPad X1 lineup, with the ThinkPad X1 Nano G2 and X1 Carbon G10 as the standout models this year. All other ThinkPads are unveiled at a later date - though this year, Lenovo made an exception for the brand new ThinkPad Z series, a new premium series with AMD-CPUs.

Notably, the ThinkPad Z series features the Microsoft-developed Pluton security chip. This has created some outrage, since it is another proprietary hardware component. Faced with this, Lenovo felt the need to clarify that the Pluton chips will not be enabled by default and is completely optional. Specifically, Lenovo told The Register: "Pluton will be disabled by default on 2022 Lenovo ThinkPad platforms. Specifically the Z13, Z16, T14, T16, T14s, P16s and X13 using AMD 6000-series processors. Customers will have the ability to enable Pluton themselves,"

While Z13 and Z16 are already public, the other models with AMD Ryzen 6000 - ThinkPad X13 G3, T14 G3, T14s G3, T16 and P16s - are not yet announced. While Lenovo only acknowledges their existence and the fact that they feature AMD Ryzen 6000, this still is newsworthy: Up until now, the ThinkPad T15 (available from Amazon, affiliate link) and its workstation counterpart ThinkPad P15s were not at all available with AMD-CPUs.

With the new ThinkPad T16 and P16s joining the lineup of AMD ThinkPads, almost all models outside of the thicker workstations and the Intel-exclusive X1 series will optionally come with AMD processors - certainly a huge win for AMD, considering that merely 6 years ago, not a single ThinkPad outside of the budget E series was using AMD chips.