Recently, Lenovo Group announced its best-ever financial results for fiscal year 2026, with total revenue growing 20% year-over-year to RMB 589.9 billion (approximately US$83.1 billion), and adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders rising 42% year-over-year. AI-related revenue doubled over the full year, growing 105% to account for 33% of total revenue. For the first time in history, all three business groups achieved profitability simultaneously, sending the stock price up 13% to a 26-year high.
All Three Engines Firing: From "PC Vendor" to "AI Infrastructure Operator"
| Business Segment | Revenue | YoY Growth | Key Milestone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligent Devices | RMB 418.5B | 17% | Stable foundation |
| Infrastructure | RMB 136.2B | 32% | First-ever turnaround to profit |
| Solutions & Services | RMB 71.0B | 19% | All-time high |
The turnaround of the Infrastructure business is particularly pivotal—what was once considered a "profit drag" in servers, storage, and networking has become a growth engine amid surging AI computing demand. This transformation validates Lenovo's "Full-Stack AI" strategy: forming a complete AI infrastructure chain from endpoint devices to edge computing to data centers.
Tailwinds from the "National Models, National Chips" Policy
Lenovo's earnings release coincided with major signals from the National Development and Reform Commission's May press conference: during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China plans to invest over RMB 5 trillion in building new power grids and approximately RMB 5 trillion in upgrading underground pipelines, while accelerating the coordinated development of the "six networks." The government is also planning to roll out supporting documents to accelerate the implementation of "AI+" and conduct legislative research on artificial intelligence.
A recent Nomura report points out that AI computing power is driving a restructuring of semiconductor processes, with advanced packaging, lithography materials, photonic SOI, and glass substrates set to enter volume production from 2027 onward, triggering a value revaluation across the entire industry chain. As a full-stack vendor spanning "devices-edge-cloud-network-intelligence," Lenovo stands at the core of this structural upgrade.
China's Position in the Global AI Capital Landscape
Lenovo's US$83.1 billion in revenue presents an interesting contrast with Anthropic's US$90 billion valuation and OpenAI's trillion-dollar IPO scale:
Anthropic: ~US$45 billion ARR, valued at US$90 billion (~20x P/S)
OpenAI: ~US$25 billion ARR, valued at US$852 billion–US$1 trillion (~34–40x P/S)
Lenovo: US$83.1 billion revenue, US$27.5 billion AI revenue (33%), market cap ~US$15 billion (~15x P/E)
This comparison reveals the valuation dilemma facing Chinese hard-tech enterprises: they possess real revenue, profitability, and full-industry-chain布局, yet capital markets assign them valuations far below those of US AI unicorns that are "burning cash for growth." Lenovo's 13% stock surge to a 26-year high may signal that the market is beginning to reassess "AI revenue quality"—not whose story is more compelling, but whose revenue is more sustainable.
Conclusion
Lenovo's RMB 590 billion in revenue is not an endpoint, but a microcosm of China's AI industrialization. While US AI companies are still chasing trillion-dollar valuations in a cycle of "earning one dollar while losing one dollar twenty," Lenovo has demonstrated an alternative path for "Full-Stack AI": from PCs to servers, from edge to cloud, from hardware to services—using incremental innovation rather than disruptive cash-burning to achieve scaled AI revenue deployment. With AI revenue accounting for 33%, Lenovo is no longer a "PC vendor" but an "AI infrastructure operator." Against the backdrop of the national "RMB 5 trillion new power grid + RMB 5 trillion underground pipeline" investment during the 15th Five-Year Plan, Lenovo's full-stack capabilities across "devices-edge-cloud-network-intelligence" stand to gain even greater policy dividends. The story of Chinese AI may not lie in Silicon Valley's valuation myths, but in the hard-tech transformation embodied by companies like Lenovo.