As Chinese Tech Retreats From CES, Lenovo Claims Center Stage at the Vegas Sphere
Since the abrupt halt brought on by Covid-19, most Chinese companies that once dominated CES have retreated amid extended travel restrictions and rising geopolitical tensions. But Lenovo, the world’s largest PC maker, stands out as a notable exception, charging ahead in the U.S. market even as the presence of many of its Chinese peers has faded. This year, Lenovo claimed center stage at CES 2026, hosting its annual product launch event, Tech World, at Las Vegas’s coolest venue: the Sphere.
The two-hour event yesterday (Jan. 6) held the audience’s attention throughout. Lasers cut through the darkness as 16K video washed across the Sphere’s vast, curved screen, wrapping the audience in light and sound. The spectacle doubled as a demonstration of Lenovo’s partnership with Sphere Studios, which produces content for the venue. Behind the scenes, Lenovo workstations, servers and services powered the ultra-high-resolution visuals, enabling real-time rendering and A.I.-assisted creative workflows built for immersive live shows and cinematic-scale production.
Unlike many of its peers, Lenovo loves co-marketing with other major tech brands, often inviting their senior executives to share the stage. Yesterday, Lenovo chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang was joined by Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, AMD CEO Lisa Su and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Huang and Su had delivered their own CES keynotes earlier in the week.
Throughout the presentation, Lenovo unveiled a broad slate of products and platforms. The announcements centered on what Lenovo calls Hybrid A.I., led by Qira, a cross-device personal A.I. “super agent,” alongside a full stack of A.I. platforms and services designed for both consumers and enterprises.
On the hardware side, the company introduced new A.I. PCs across its Yoga, IdeaPad, ThinkPad and ThinkCentre Aura Edition lines, along with new Motorola flagship smartphones, including a FIFA World Cup 2026 special-edition Razr. Lenovo also showcased several rollable and wearable concept devices, as well as new ThinkSystem and ThinkEdge servers and an A.I. Cloud Gigafactory developed with Nvidia for large-scale A.I. infrastructure deployments.
Lenovo’s brand push in the U.S.
In recent years, Tech World has evolved into one of the industry’s more closely watched conferences, distinct from traditional product launches in both scope and ambition. Lenovo has used the event not only to introduce new devices but to frame its view of where its industry is headed.
Beyond technology, Lenovo has increasingly aligned itself with high-profile sports brands to strengthen its foothold in the U.S. market. It is an official partner of the FIFA World Cup 2026 in North America and a major sponsor of Formula 1. During yesterday’s event, Lenovo hosted a ticket raffle offering attendees a chance to win an all-inclusive ticket to FIFA World Cup quarterfinal matches (whose prices are at a historical high). FIFA President Gianni Infantino also appeared onstage during the presentation.
Lenovo sells personal computers, servers, monitors and smartphones, and Yang has long framed the U.S. as an important market. “We want to be a solid no.3 in North America,” he told Reuters in a 2021 interview. Today, Lenovo trails HP and Dell in the U.S. PC market. American consumers account for less than 20 percent of Lenovo’s total revenue, Yang told Reuters in August.
In the years leading up to 2020, Chinese companies were a dominant force at CES, often accounting for a third or more of all exhibitors. At CES 2018, more than 1,500 Chinese firms attended the show. By 2023, the first year after China fully reopened, that number had fallen to fewer than 500. While participation has rebounded since then, it remains below pre-Covid levels, and several major Chinese technology companies, including Huawei, DJI and Alibaba, were notably absent in recent years.