Lenovo Tech World at CES 2026: Live updates including news from Motorola and ThinkPad brands

As Cherlynn said, thanks for sticking with us — I'm off to hit the Indian food cart!

Thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate you sticking with us through the technical difficulties. You can read all our Lenovo coverage with actual details on the new laptops and gadgets on Engadget. I'll put some of them here for easy reference as well.

There you have it, folks. The CES equivalent of Rent.

Oh it seems everyone is saying goodbye and the show is over. YY is flanked by Lip-Bu Tan and Lisa Su and they're doing what seems like an end credits and Broadway bow.

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All 14 speakers have taken the stage for a final bow.

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According to Infantino, one World Cup = 104 Super Bowls. It used to be 100, but inflation has hit the Super Bowl hard.

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Gianni Infantino not exactly stirring up the crowd here.

Infantino is now talking about how many people will be going to FIFA games and watching from home and how the world will stand still. Seemingly nervously, YY chuckles from the side and remarks "Amazing, hehe."

YY asks Infantino how can AI be used to make football more inclusive. Infantino responds by saying "Hello Las Vegas!" and asking for applause and thanking YY for having him onstage... Then asking for more applause.

YY is telling us about a "referee view solution" that will be part of the FIFA World Cup content. President of FIFA Gianni Infantino is joining YY on stage. Both him and YY ask the audience to cheer loudly.

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A video of CGI football players without a clear purpose. I begin to fear the robot dog is not coming back.

YY comes back out onstage and asks the audience "let me hear it from the football fans!" I am staring at the clock, hoping we're near the end.

And by that I meant soccer, not American football.

FIFA deals with a lot of data, Wong says. Lenovo is working with FIFA to "elevate global football," Wong says, before bidding the audience goodbye and leaving the stage. Some kind of football-related video is playing now.

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Wong describes a data mining system Lenovo built for FIFA.

Instead we're learning more about FIFA...

He bends down, pats the robot dog and walks away from it. I want to know more about the robot dog?

A robot has just walked onstage and brought a pair of tickets to the FIFA world cup to Wong. He says it's actually a World Cup reminder for all of us? And Wong is urging people to scan a QR code behind him for a chance to win tickets to the games.

People in the chat are also asking for Lenovo Robots, and the screen behind Wong says "AI-enabled Robotics."

A Lenovo iChain appears. I will just tell you that the YouTube Live Chat keeps asking if Wong will be announcing new ThinkPads. I just saw an "Auto Twist" ThinkBook flash onscreen, so maybe it's coming?

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Lenovo's Ken Wong doing his version of a Gwen Stefani dance.

Wong is talking about a Lenovo AI Library now, saying it contains hundreds of solutions "ready to be tailored to your business." I think that's all you needed to know.

I don't know why, but another guest is taking the stage. Lenovo's president of solutions and services GroupKen Wong just came onstage with way too much energy, making a strange Gwen Stefani song joke.

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Big Sky apparently captured footage from the International Space Station.

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This is the first I'm seeing of the Sphere Wizard of Oz experience, and I can't help but notice how much less imaginative the landscape is outside the boundaries of the original film's vision.

I'm seeing sharks, elephants, lions, people partying, dark churches, stunning geographical structures and more. It must be nice to see in the Sphere. We're being shown scenes from within a space shuttle now. This must be that special footage Koester was talking about.

There's some "mind-blowing footage captured by Big Sky" coming at the end of a teaser video that just started playing, and it's got scenes that seem very Wizard of Oz-ey.

Koester describes the tech powering the screens and various experential components at Sphere, and says it's delivering 40 times the resolution of 4K with frames that are more than 70 times larger than traditional HD." It generates so much data per second that it requires "extraordinary compute power." That's where Lenovo comes in. "Lenovo's workstations and infrastructure transformed Big Sky's raw data into full color images," Koester explains. "Without Lenovo, we couldn't move from capture to final render at the quality or the speed that we need."

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Jennifer Koester discusses how Sphere's high-res Big Sky cameras are helped by Lenovo tech. Again, not clear whether this is something regular consumers can buy.

To pull its ambitious projects off, Sphere needs "bold partners, equally committed to innovation. And Lenovo is one of those partners," Koester says. Ohhhhh I understand why they're given stage time now.

"Sphere is an experential medium. One where you're not just watching content, you're immersed in it," Koester says. I don't know why this is part of a tech press conference.

"Speaking of unstoppable, there's one team that proves what is possible when imagination meets technology, rendering ultra high resolution content at incredible speed," Gorakhpurwalla is teasing, referring to The Wizard of Oz production at Sphere. He invites the president and COO of Sphere Entertainment Co Jennifer Koester onstage.

Chat user AD3Supa said in the YouTube live chat "This was the best part of the conference so far" and I feel humbled.

Up next is the ThinkSystem SR650i server. It's another server that can process AI things... like inferencing. It has "exceptional GPU density," for example, and uses a "standard 2U form factor." It seems intended for banking and other financial institutions, as an example.

Gorakhpurwalla just said that "internally we call this The Beast." He's referring to the ThinkSystem SR675i. He mentioned how it can be used in MRIs, supporting secure local processing. "The impact? Life-changing efficiency." Okay, he reeled me back in with these real-world impacts.

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This infrastructure may be important for AI inferencing, but as the chat is noting, it's not exactly a consumer electronic.

I've had enough Enterprise AI :)

I think Cherlynn has had enough Sphere.

There are about 8 minutes left in this press conference, I think (and hope), and I'm not really sure what else Lenovo might have to announce.

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Cherlynn had the right idea — I really need a biryani for this.

YY returns, introduces Lenovo's head of the infrastructure solutions group Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, and leaves with Su. Taking a lot of my energy with them. I'm not sure we needed a press conference at The Sphere to talk about this very topic.

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They should have smartified these backlights.

"We've created an AI-ready platform that delivers outstanding inference performance today with Lenovo, and gives enterprises the ability to really evolve over time... including future support for AMD Instinct accelerators as part of Lenovo's.. broad portfolio," Su said.

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Dr. Lisa Su tells us that everyone is asking the same question: "How can I get AI closer to my data?" My question is more like: "If AI is so great, can it fix the dang latency on this stream?"

It's the new... ThinkSystem SR675i...

"How do I bring AI closer to my data, with the flexibility to grow and evolve over time," Su said. Together with Lenovo, AMD is announcing new AI inferencing servers. I fear my interest has returned to my briyani.

Okay but YY has just invited AMD's Lisa Su onstage and I'm mildly excited. She's like the Michelle Yeoh of tech CEOs, in my opinion.

Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the point of the liveblog where I am now doing what we at Engadget think of as vibe blogging

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If this presentation has had a theme so far (other than Cristiano Amon's supernatural ability to rock a gray suit), it's AIs stacking with other AIs to unlock new capabilities.

YY is talking about Lenovo having the "Hybrid AI advantage" now. Something something "production scheduling" and "demand forecasts" and "multiple agents."

But I think Sam is doing a great job in the captions of these screenshots he's posting.

If I'm wrong and you, my dear reader, care deeply about Enterprise AI, let me know and I'll liveblog the crap out of this for you.

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YY is telling us about how AI will "smartify" lots of industries, "not just Formula One."

I should explain — I love the words "Enterprise AI" because it means I get to tune out and take a few bites of this briyani I've had sitting on my lap since this event started.

Lenovo is a proud sponsor and global technology partner of Formula One, he said. I guess that explains the F1 shout.

The revving sounds of racecars start playing, and we're now seeing a POV video of a car slamming it down an F1-style track. YY says "you just felt the speed. You just heard the power. And it's more than just racing. It's the fastest enterprise AI..." Oh dear.

Amon is wrapping up, calling this an exciting time in technology and saying he is proud of the partnership with Lenovo. YY returns to the stage and my favorite words ever appear on screen: "Enterprise AI."

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We're now getting a Formula 1-themed video experience, again using the Sphere surface to its full potential.

By the way, we are just over an hour in and I've not really learned much that seems truly groundbreaking. An AI platform that works across devices, maybe. But wouldn't that just be an app? And while new laptops and phones are fun, I don't know that I would spend Sphere money and time on launching those products. I guess this is all in the name of marketing and optics. And the audience are probably there for Gwen Stefani.

I see our Sam Chapman, who is killing it on the screenshots in this liveblog, has identified Amon as a "Fashion icon." We will have words after this.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

Fashion icon Cristiano Amon tells us the tech industry will soon merge with the fashion industry.

"I feel this could be, you know, like a Qualcomm event, talking about the evolution of Snapdragon in the age of AI," Amon said, commenting on how aligned his company is with YY's.

YY hands the stage off to Amon, who reiterates "you heard the man. Billions of devices." He continues to talk about his thoughts during YY's presentation.

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Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon is the latest executive to join the mutual congratulation train.

"We are working with Qualcomm on many more of these AI-native devices," YY starts off. "I believe this is an emerging category with huge potential, in billions of units," he added. I love how this is how YY thinks of potential. In billions of units shipped. Not in human life improvement.

Rossi is welcoming YY and Qualcomm's Cristiano Amon back onstage.

Due to the glitchiness of the stream, all I heard was Qira telling Rossi to "wrap it up" so I don't know how scathing of a review that is.

Mehdi left the stage, and Rossi is now standing in front of the words AI Perceptive Companion Concept. He says Qira is "your personal assistant on the go," and that he's set it up to listen to his remarks today. "Hey Qira, how am I doing so far?" he asked.

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Did not have a Clippy cameo on my bingo card for this show.

Rossi continues after Mehdi talks about the benefits of on-device AI, asking him to explain how the two companies plan to bridge the gap between phones and PCs. Mehdi says the Copilot app on the home screen can help, and there's Microsoft's Meeko appearance that also appears on the external screen of a Motorola foldable phone like the Flip. He says Meeko can even help you call old friends, before shouting "Hey Clippy!" That made me smile.

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Motorola is gluing Swarovski crystals to its Signature phones. No word yet on whether they'll be AI-powered.

Aaaand.... lag. We've frozen on Mehdi congratulating Rossi on the launch of Qira.

Rossi asks Mehdi to explain how Qira will work with Microsoft's own software (let's not forget Copilot exists).

Rossi talks up some partnerships that Lenovo has an invites Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi onstage with him.

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The Signature is Motorola's "most refined phone ever," with an iPhone-like urge to get rid of as many physical buttons as possible.

Lenovo has also partnered with Pantone to come up with some specially named colors for the device. Cool.

The Signature device uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 processor and will have Qira onboard. Coming up, "we will launch a special edition with Swarovski crystals," Rossi added.

There is also a Motorola Signature phone. "This is the most refined phone we have ever created," Rossi said. It does look quite attractive.

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Luca Rossi talks up Motorola's "incredible run" before introducing the new Razr Fold.

It's a folding phone with a larger 8.1-inch screen on the inside compared to the Flip style Razrs that Motorola has been making over the last few years.

"Now let's talk about our best ever AI phone," Rossi says. He said Motorola "has been on an incredible run, especially in the new space," referring to the Motorola Razr family. He introduces the Motorola Razr Fold. A teaser video begins.

He's telling us more of the same, saying things like "this is technology that knows you" and how it should work across devices. A statistic appears onscreen, saying 1 billion AI smartphones are projected to ship... in some time frame.

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Another deeply ironic time for the stream to freeze up.

YY has just invited Lenovo's president of its Intelligent Devices group Luca Rossi onstage to tell us more about the new systems.

They're telling us about the FIFA-branded gaming PC now, the Legion Pro 7i. It's a Fifa World Cup 26 edition that will also feature Lenovo Qira that can help gamers play smarter, YY said.

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Our first actual PC launch of the presentation: the Lenovo Aura Edition with Intel chip.

Lenovo's Aura edition laptops have been around for years, but for CES 2026, there are new ThinkPads with the Aura edition label. According to YY, there is a "full portfolio" for the next generation of Aura edition PCs.

Now, amidst all this mutual self-congratulation, what neither of them are outright saying is that there are new Lenovo laptops with Intel chips. Lenovo's "AI PC Aura edition is just another perfect example," YY just said.

The pair are going to talk about their "big plans together," Tan says AI is transforming the tech landscape and says that the two companies have worked together for more than three decades.

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YY is back, this time welcoming Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to the stage.

YY invites Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to join him on the stage.

She throws back to YY after saying that Lenovo and Motorola are excited to bring Qira to the audience. As he takes the stage, the words "Perceptive AI" appear on the screen behind him. Lenovo Qira is a cognitive human-machine interface, he says.

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Gomez reveals that her necklace has secretly been a Qira wearable the whole time, allegedly capturing important moments from earlier in the presentation as they happened.

The demo is continuing on to a wearable around the speaker's neck.

Over to the nearby table, and the executive is asking Qira on a laptop about the FIFA briefing. In these demos, Qira is able to also offer to set up calendar events and send emails.

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Angelina Gomez is demonstrating Qira. There's a lot of understandable skepticism about whether demos like this are really showing the AI in action, or just playing pre-recorded footage.

A Lenovo executive has stepped onstage with a pair of AI glasses on their face. They appear to use it to talk to Qira, asking it to identify where the stage is in. The AI says they're in The Sphere. The executive then pulls out their phone and asks for an update. Qira tells them about upcoming meetings with FIFA,

YY says Qira redefines what it means to have technology built around you. Qira will work on phones, PCs, tablets and wearables, wherever you need it. It works across platforms "from Windows to Android."

Sam Chapman for Engadget

"The big reveal": Qira, Lenovo's cross-platform AI agent.

YY is announcing Lenovo Qira, with an elevated voice and energy level that comes sort of out of nowhere. An animation appears on the screens at the Sphere.

A personal AI could help and grow as it learns, too, supported by a Personal Computing Hub that YY saysLenovo is pioneering with "Project Cubit"

YY says we all have multiple devices like phones, tabletes and laptops. But our photos, files, contacts, ideas and even our entire life experiences are separated across them. What if they could be united via a super AI that can orchestrate across all our devices to deliver a "truly personalized AI experience"?

Agent Core and Multi-agent collaboration will be the core of an "agent-native future," Kurtoglu said. It'll free humans to do what humans do best, he added, "create, explore and connect." He's giving the stage back to Yang, who he refers to as YY (and I will from here on too).

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Kurtoglu: In the "agent-native future" brought on by these three technologies, "humans will be free to do what humans do best."

In a demo about different agents handling lighting and sound, the audience at the Sphere were treated to a multi-directional multimedia experience with sounds seeming like they were coming from different directions.

Kurtoglu is talking about an Agent Core program now that will be part of its AI platform. He says Agent Core can take actions on your behalf depending on the context. He's moved on to Multi-Agent Collaboration, saying that "it will take more than summarization" for memorable experiences.

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Lenovo CTO Tolga Kurtoglu is doing a bit where he pretends to get an AI agent to help him write his speech.

Kurtoglu is showing off the Lenovo Tech World agent, and they're having a conversation onstage that... doesn't feel rehearsed at all... (/s)

Jensen Huang runs off stage and wishes Yang a good show. Now, Yang is talking about AI Democratization, and has handed the stage over to Lenovo's chief technology officer Tolga Kurtoglu. He mentions the World Cup and says he wants to show how an AI agent can give us a show.

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Livestream issue seems to be fixed now. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has joined Yang onstage to announce Lenovo and NVIDIA's collaboration on an "AI Gigafactory."

Huang is sharing a bit more about what the partnership means. He's talking about the expertise that Lenovo has, how a significant percent of the world's supercomputers are actually built by Lenovo.

Today we are launching the Lenovo AI factory with NVIDIA, Yang said. It works with the new Rubin platformed announced yesterday.

According to our on-the-ground source, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang was cracking jokes about how he's known Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang. We've got an audio feed into the event now, so we're back up and running with this liveblog. Blackwell was just mentioned, and Yang mentioned AI inferencing becoming a new trend.

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Watching at home, I think I'm several minutes behind at this point. Innumerable Fs in the chat. People are speculating (most not seriously) that Lenovo is getting DDoSed.

"The streaming is getting tired for saying AI all time" I'm glad I'm not alone in my frustration but I do want to bring you all the actual information, dear readers. Let's see what we already know Lenovo has announced.

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Ironically, as Yang talks about the synergy of the digital and physical worlds, the livestream freezes yet again.

There are about 600 people watching Lenovo's livestream concurrently on YouTube, with everyone in the live chat talking about the lag. "Lenovo's newest innovation: Lag in AI"

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Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang takes the stage with a WWE-style entrance.

For those watching at home, the stream keeps pausing and buffering, which is hugely ironic for the world's largest tech conference.

Lenovo Chairman and CEO is taking the stage amid a very dramatic light show. It must be fun to get the rockstar treatment as a tech company CEO. "Good evening everyone," he said, welcoming everyone to the event and The Sphere.

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Lenovo kicks off its presentation with a light show that incorporates the surface of the Sphere.

It appears that that might have been a welcome message to the in-person attendees. Now we're watching a trailer for the event.

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Two minutes after the scheduled start time, the Lenovo livestream is lagging. Comments in the live chat make it pretty clear the problem is on their end.

Gary Shapiro has taken to the stage, although my livestream is completely stuck.

There are just a few seconds left till Lenovo is supposed to kick off, so grab your snacks and drinks!

There's also free beer, which should help with people's patience levels if things take too long to start. I'm carefully eyeing the countdown on this livestream, which says there's just over 5 minutes to go. I hope they don't begin late as it's already late in the day.

Engadget

The inside of The Sphere at Lenovo's Tech World press conference at CES 2026, showing the words "Smarter AI for all" on the screen.

I'm told that the food being served at the Sphere right now includes sliders, hot honey chicken tenders and cake pops.

Engadget

The outside of the Sphere at Lenovo's CES 2026 press conference.

There are 14 speakers altogether so I'd strap in, grab a snack and a drink and get ready for a pretty long presentation. Based on the schedule I received, doors opened about an hour ago, and if the thousands of people lining up for the event all get seated quickly enough, I can't imagine they'd start late.

Dude's got some fierce brows.

Lenovo (Screenshot)

A screenshot of Lenovo's website showing the "Featured speakers" in a carousel.

I'm mostly excited to know if Gianni Infantino will present Gary Shapiro with a FIFA Peace Prize

That's quite the mix of notables. And yes, you probably know who Gianni Infantino is.

You can already see the speaker lineup on the Lenovo Tech World website, and there are a lot of big names in tech ready to go tonight. From Jensen Huang and Dr. Lisa Su to Gianni Infantino and Gary Shapiro, the list of names is quite the mix of who's who in tech (and elsewhere).

From our previous experience at the Delta press conference at the Sphere, it's our understanding that there is a lot of walking and travailing to do before you actually get to your seat.

I'm expecting a pretty dense agenda for tonight, but because the event is starting at 5PM PT, it running late into the evening means I will likely be very tired by the time we're in the middle of it. Still, I think I know what Lenovo has up its sleeve. Maybe some laptops? Perhaps some concept devices with unique screens? And, possibly,

I'm hearing there will be a special musical guest or two performing at the Sphere tonight, including Gwen Stefani. That's where Lenovo's press conference is being held, by the way.

Hello! Welcome to our liveblog of Lenovo's Tech World press conference here at CES 2026. I don't know if you've seen the pictures in our liveblog of CES 2026 but there have been long lines of people queuing up for tickets to this event. It's arguably the hottest ticket of the show.