The 2026 FIFA World Cup has concluded. As global football fans disperse, another group of people who came to North America for the tournament gathered at the Cornell Club in New York. Attendees included entrepreneurs, financiers, cultural figures, and international relations experts from both China and the United States, alongside familiar faces for Chinese fans like Bora Milutinović and new friends such as Cape Verdean goalkeeper Vozinha.

At the "Beyond the Pitch: U.S.-China Business, AI, and Global Collaboration" event, Lenovo Group Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing presented Vozinha with a YOGA Air 14 Ultra Aura 2026 FIFA World Cup Limited Edition AI PC, hoping the device could provide technical support for the team. Vozinha reciprocated with a pair of signed gloves.

The gloves came from an African island nation in the Atlantic, while the computer was connected to Chinese technology and the global supply chain. These two gifts were exchanged in New York, and the story spread to football fans worldwide via social media.

Vozinha also received a poster filled with messages from Chinese netizens. Just a month prior, many people didn't even know where Cape Verde was located; now, Vozinha has a fanbase in China far exceeding his home country's population.

This is a microcosm of globalization.

In grand narratives, globalization manifests as trade, tariffs, and capital flows. In the everyday lives of ordinary people, it is composed of smaller elements: a tournament, a player from afar, a gift crossing borders, and a serendipitous meeting of minds.

The World Cup most visibly showcases human connections. What underpins the tournament's operation, however, is the vast industrial collaboration between international organizations, technology companies, supply chains, and engineering teams.

"Against the backdrop of current technological competition, such cases demonstrate that, even as global tech cooperation faces challenges, there still exist positive practices capable of connecting different countries and markets," noted Ma Wenyan, former Managing Director at China Investment Corporation and an Adjunct Professor at New York University, during the event. He stated that Lenovo Group's innovative AI applications for the 2026 FIFA World Cup presented a noteworthy glimmer of hope.

Ma Wenyan expressed that while global decoupling trends persist, and the AI era may even intensify this trend, he remains hopeful that a narrow bridge for communication and cooperation can be preserved between the U.S. and China. Lenovo Group's application of AI technology for the World Cup is a positive signal.

Lenovo Group serves as a unique case study for observing the global technology industry landscape. It has been a beneficiary of globalization over the past decades and is also a key participant in the global collaboration for this World Cup: born and raised in China, it underwent a global transformation through international technology, branding, and talent, and is now delivering its accumulated AI and connectivity capabilities to a global audience at a World Cup hosted in North America.

Continuation of Engagement

This New York event can be seen as a continuation, at the civil society and industry levels, of the Beijing dinner held during a recent high-level U.S. visit.

At that time, the invited Chinese entrepreneurs hailed from fields such as AI, consumer electronics, internet, auto parts, and home appliances. Their industries differed, but a commonality was clear: they are all long-term participants in the market and industrial systems of both China and the United States—connecting China's manufacturing capabilities, market scale, supply chain efficiency, and application needs on one end, with America's technology ecosystem, consumer market, capital networks, and industry standards on the other.

Lenovo Group is a representative example among them. It was born in Beijing's Zhongguancun, with operations spanning over 180 markets globally; it entered the global R&D, channel, and enterprise service systems through the acquisition of IBM's PC business, and has long collaborated with U.S. tech companies like NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. It both absorbs global technology supply and is responsible for the integration and delivery of servers, systems, terminals, and enterprise services.

Two months later, the setting shifted from a formal dinner to the World Cup, yet the theme for business, technology, and people-to-people exchanges remained: how technology can move beyond the sporting arena to create broader commercial value through global industrial collaboration.

From the Beijing dinner to the New York event, Lenovo Group's role has consistently centered on being a connector. At the Beijing dinner, it represented a company connecting the technology ecosystems, markets, and supply chains of China and the U.S. At the New York event following the World Cup, as an official FIFA technology partner, it brought to the forefront the AI, infrastructure, and engineering capabilities supporting the tournament's operations, further unlocking the commercial value of these technologies in manufacturing, smart cities, and various other industries.

This World Cup spanned the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, covering 16 host cities and 104 matches. Its operation required the participation of international sports bodies, global broadcasters, venue operators, communication service providers, and multinational tech companies. Lenovo Group provided terminals, servers, AI technology, and applications, integrating disparate technical resources from different regions into a unified tournament system, undergoing the ultimate stress test of the world's largest scale, highest intensity, and most real-world scenario.

A report released on July 20th noted that Lenovo Group's role within the FIFA sponsorship framework has achieved a strategic transformation from brand exposure to integration into the core technology system. The report pointed out that by using technological innovation as a breakthrough, Lenovo Group has built its own irreplaceable competitive advantage in core technology areas, providing a differentiated reference model for other Chinese tech companies exploring overseas expansion paths.

From Table Tennis to Football

At the New York event, Stephen Orlins, President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, recalled 1972.

That year, the Chinese table tennis team visited the United States. To cover the entire visit, the organizers prepared two airplanes—one for the athletes and one for the media. Whenever the Chinese team visited an American player's hometown, a Chinese player would "coincidentally" lose a match. The slogan then was "Friendship first, competition second." Orlins remarked that it was like an early version of the World Cup.

Fifty-four years later, the World Cup has brought together fans from different countries once again. The World Cup is not a new form of ping-pong diplomacy, nor can it resolve all differences between nations through a single sporting event. However, it reminds people of one thing: people-to-people contact can still preserve a space for mutual understanding outside of political narratives; just like a football match needs no translation, yet everyone understands it.

This logic extends from sports to business. Sports exchanges change perceptions of each other, while industrial cooperation changes each other's lives.

Reviewing Lenovo Group's globalization journey, Orlins stated that over 20 years ago, when Lenovo acquired IBM's PC business, he explicitly supported the deal because, in his view, it was not only about the future of the two companies but also a symbolically significant U.S.-China business collaboration. "I believe this was crucial not only for Lenovo Group but also immensely significant for the future of U.S.-China relations."

The brand, technology, talent, channels, and global customer base brought by the IBM PC business, combined with Lenovo's original manufacturing and supply chain capabilities, enabled Lenovo to evolve from a domestic Chinese enterprise into a truly global technology company. After this step, it grew from a Chinese company into a globalized firm capable of operating successfully under the legal, cultural, and commercial environments of different countries.

The Global Industrial Network Behind World Cup AI

Over the subsequent two decades, Lenovo Group has continued to invest in global R&D, manufacturing, supply chains, and local service networks, forming a "Global/Local" model: integrating the world's best technology, supply chains, and talent to achieve "last-mile" localization in over 180 markets; the core is transforming global resources into the capability to serve local customers.

Lenovo Group is not a one-way cargo ship sailing from China to the world; it is more like a long-established industrial network where resources move between different markets and land in the form of localized products and services. This unique "Global Resources/Local Delivery" model has helped Lenovo Group navigate numerous cycles, and now AI is making it even more robust.

In the latest Gartner Global Supply Chain Top 25 ranking, Lenovo Group secured the fifth position globally, setting a historical record for Chinese and Asia-Pacific companies in this premier international assessment. Since the inception of the Gartner ranking, Lenovo Group has been listed 12 times, the highest cumulative number among Chinese enterprises, and has ranked in the global top ten for five consecutive years. Quickly sensing changes in volatile environments and dynamically allocating resources is the core challenge for global supply chains in the AI era; Lenovo embeds AI into every decision-making link of its supply chain: planning, forecasting, fulfillment, logistics, procurement, manufacturing, and risk management.

"The World Cup has never been just about football; it's about the common connection of a global audience. As a technology company rooted in China with a global presence, Lenovo has also been contemplating how to connect the world," Yang Yuanqing pointed out. He stated that Lenovo's "Global/Local" model has once again been validated—what enables the stable operation of AI systems in such a complex mega-event is the engineering capability accumulated through Lenovo's global supply chain, intelligent manufacturing, and large-scale delivery, the hard-earned skills honed over decades.

"When such capability serves different markets and industries worldwide, technology itself becomes a connection—allowing a capability proven in one scenario to be applied in another. This kind of connection is precisely the most easily understood common ground," Yang Yuanqing stated. "The World Cup is a common language for all humanity, and AI is a shared imperative for industrial transformation. We firmly believe that the power of technology can transcend the pitch and connect the world—making competition fairer and cooperation more promising."

A Global Technology Engineering Project

"Only brands truly possessing global business undertaking capability, technology output capability, or a long-term internationalization strategy can stay on the field," noted one analysis, which listed Lenovo Group as the sole representative enterprise for "Tournament AI and Computing Foundation" at this World Cup, stating that Lenovo bears the responsibility for the tournament's technological foundation, directly participating in competition rule formulation and operations.

During the World Cup, Yang Yuanqing visited the Integrated Command Center in Miami, where data from three time zones, 16 host cities, 48 teams, and 104 matches converged before being distributed to relevant teams based on on-site situations. This center served as the core coordination hub for all operational work of this World Cup. Supported by Lenovo's AI technology, cross-regional issues could be rapidly shared, and different functional teams could make collaborative judgments based on the same set of information; in the event of emergencies, tournament organizers could promptly understand the on-site status and respond uniformly.

On top of the foundation supporting tournament operations, Lenovo launched three major AI technologies: FIFA AI Pro serving the teams, Ref Cam serving broadcasters and viewers, and 3D Digital Humans connecting the referee system with public understanding. Thus, Lenovo's technology entered multiple stages from pre-match analysis and in-game operations to global broadcasting.

FIFA AI Pro marked the first large-scale application of generative AI for tactical analysis in the World Cup, used by all 48 participating teams. Coaches and analysts can directly ask questions in natural language, and the system calls upon match data, video, and knowledge graphs to generate heat maps, passing charts, player comparisons, and tactical analysis.

The ear-worn cameras worn by referees weigh only about 17 grams, resulting in severely shaky footage; Lenovo's Ref Cam AI video enhancement system performs real-time smoothing with millisecond-level latency, reducing image distortion in high-dynamic motion scenes by up to 50%-70% and compressing final video delay to under 2 seconds; the cropping and jitter ratio is controlled below 11%, enabling the referee's first-person perspective to meet large-scale live broadcast requirements for the first time.

The 3D Digital Humans serve the visualization of offside calls. Players undergo digital scans pre-match to create high-precision 3D models; after player tracking and semi-automated offside data determine a call during the match, Lenovo converts the relevant information into 3D animations, accurately recreating each player's body dimensions, features, and movements.

Lenovo Group needed to integrate its own terminals, servers, algorithms, services, and engineering capabilities with the technology combinations of FIFA, Hawk-Eye, broadcasters, communication service providers, and venue operations teams. Its core task was ensuring stable coordination of resources distributed across different organizations, regions, and technical systems throughout 104 matches.

During the tournament, this system simultaneously served 48 teams, millions of on-site spectators, and a global broadcast audience. Any delay or outage could impact tournament operations within seconds and be rapidly amplified through live broadcasts. Beyond technical capability, cross-regional deployment, system integration, real-time operation and maintenance, and emergency response constituted the main challenges of this global engineering project.

"What scenario could be more extreme than the World Cup? It constitutes the ultimate stress test for the real-time performance, stability, and cross-regional coordination capabilities of AI infrastructure," Yang Yuanqing pointed out. From on-site data processing at the stadiums, to the International Broadcast Center in Dallas, to cloud-based global collaboration, Lenovo's "Device, Edge, Cloud, Network, Intelligence" architecture completed a large-scale operation spanning three countries and lasting 104 matches.

Another observer also summarized that Lenovo Group's participation in the World Cup reflects not just a single company entering an international event, but also the evolving role of Chinese enterprises in the global market: moving further from product exports towards the export of technology, professional capabilities, and innovative outcomes. Major international projects like the World Cup also provide concrete scenarios for enterprises to establish cross-market cooperative relationships.

Technology Beyond the Pitch: From Tournament Delivery to Industrial Returns

The previous wave of globalization was primarily driven by cost and efficiency. Companies placed production in lower-cost regions and sold products to markets with stronger demand, forming international divisions of labor and economies of scale. Today, companies must also account for export controls, data security, supply chain stability, and geopolitical risks.

AI especially relies on cross-border resource allocation. Chips require markets and system integration, hardware needs manufacturing and supply chains, models require computing power and data, and industry applications demand local deployment and long-term service. Resources are distributed across different countries, companies, and technology systems, and a complex AI system typically requires collaboration from multiple parties.

Whether globalization can continue in the future depends not on whether people still believe in grand slogans, but on whether all parties can find cooperative projects that create mutual benefit. The World Cup provides a clearly defined cooperative project. FIFA, broadcasters, venue operators, communication service providers, and multinational tech companies work towards a common goal: all participants focus on a specific task—ensuring fair play, stable broadcasts, and a better experience for football fans worldwide. Lenovo Group provides terminals, servers, AI applications, and engineering services, while mobilizing its global supply chain and local teams to complete delivery.

What truly moves beyond the pitch is the hybrid AI architecture that supports the operation of these applications.

Data processing for this World Cup was distributed across different layers: stadiums handled real-time computing locally, the Dallas International Broadcast Center undertook centralized processing, and the cloud supported global data collaboration. Lenovo integrated devices, edge computing, cloud, network, and AI systems, enabling data to be processed at different locations based on real-time requirements, privacy, cost, and energy efficiency considerations.

This architecture closely resembles the AI needs of enterprise clients. Enterprises possess vast amounts of private data, require AI to understand specific business contexts, and have demands for data security, deployment costs, and response speed. Therefore, personal, enterprise, and public intelligence need to operate across different locations—devices, the edge, and the cloud. What the World Cup showcased was not an isolated tournament application, but an engineering methodology transferable to other complex scenarios.

This transfer is already occurring. Yang Yuanqing explained that Lenovo's AI capabilities have already taken root in many industries. The technological logic behind the World Cup's digital twin stadiums—which calculate real-time passenger flow, predict congestion, and formulate evacuation plans as needed—is now being applied in several smart city projects within China. Lenovo's City Super AI Agent has been deployed in locations like Wuyishan, Yichang, Shanghai Hongkou, and Hohhot. The multi-agent collaboration capability behind the FIFA AI Pro Football Super AI Agent can trace its origins to the intelligent manufacturing and supply chain management practices across Lenovo's over 30 global factories. In the future, solutions tested and further optimized through World Cup实战 will, in turn, feedback into these factories, supporting second-level production scheduling, AI visual quality control, and global supply chain decisions, and creating value across a wider range of industries.

This forms a sustainable, cyclical technology system: factories and cities provide real-world scenarios, the World Cup expands the scale and complexity of the technology, and the capabilities accumulated from the tournament return to industry. Thus, Lenovo transforms a global event delivery into replicable products, engineering methodologies, and industry expertise.

From a commercial perspective, replicability determines the long-term value of the World Cup technology investment. A global event provides a high-profile customer case study, and the related technologies subsequently enter manufacturing, smart city, and enterprise markets, transforming a one-time project into longer-term product and service opportunities. Lenovo Group's financial performance data from the last fiscal year already shows contributions from its AI business. Full-year revenue exceeded $83 billion, a year-on-year increase of 20%; AI-related business accounted for over one-third of total group revenue. Yang Yuanqing has proposed that, driven by the AI business, revenue will be increased to over $100 billion within two years. Whether World Cup technology can generate scaled revenue in more industries will be a key indicator for achieving this target.

With the conclusion of the World Cup, Lenovo Group has accomplished more than just a tournament technology delivery. It has demonstrated how a technology company can mobilize its global supply chain and engineering teams to execute a highly complex project across three North American countries, collaborating with international organizations and technical partners from different nations to support a global public event. In an environment of complex and volatile international relations, a Chinese enterprise, the U.S. market, international organizations, and technical teams from multiple countries jointly completed a system serving the entire world. Cooperation does not eliminate competition, but it can create public value that competition alone cannot generate.