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When the FIFA World Cup 2026 arrives in the United States this June, it will signal more than soccer’s return to its fastest-growing commercial market. The tournament will span three countriesthe United States, Mexico, and Canadafor the first time, becoming the largest World Cup ever staged. The scale, however, is also forcing a technological reset. As modern global sporting events grow in scale, expectations have evolved alongside them. Audiences now look for more immersive broadcasts and real-time data, broadcasters face rising reliability demands, and governing bodies continue to push for greater transparency and precision. Together, these pressures are starting to expose the limits of traditional IT systems in elite sports such as soccer, particularly around latency, and paving the way for AI-driven, real-time intelligence embedded directly into competition, operations, and fan engagement. As the official technology partner of the World Cup 2026, Lenovo is treating the tournament as a systems-level deployment, placing AI at the operational core of the worlds largest sporting event. The company is treating the event not as a showcase, but as a real-world test of AI beyond cloud-first architectures, where failure carries immediate consequences. Rather, its betting that global scale, matched with deep local execution, delivers an advantage in such a complex environment. Lenovo chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang says the World Cup exemplifies how AI can operate in complex, large-scale environments. These are live events with real pressure and real audiences, he says. The value of such partnerships goes beyond short-term visibility. They help us understand how AI performs under demanding conditions, and that insight feeds directly into how we design and improve our technology. Yang also notes that, while Lenovo uses global sports partnerships to highlight its broader AI strategy, its technology is playing a major role in improving the sport itself. This year, you will see referees using AI support, players benefiting from AI insights, and organizers using AI to improve operations, he says. The company asserts that this year’s World Cup will be the most AI-driven global sporting event in history. An AI-Driven Sporting Event At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 in Las Vegas last week, Lenovo detailed how it will supply the digital backbone of the World Cup 2026from core infrastructure to advanced AI systems that will shape all 104 matches. Alongside FIFA president Gianni Infantino, the company unveiled a broad suite of AI-driven technologies for the tournament, including Football AI Pro; AI-enabled 3D player avatars integrated into semi-automated offside technology; an Intelligent Command Center using real-time AI summaries to manage tournament operations across three countries; AI-stabilized Referee View body-camera footage for broadcasts; smart wayfinding and venue digital twins; and resilient infrastructure supporting video review of refereeing decisions and broadcast systems. Lenovo CTO Tolga Kurtoglu said that Lenovo had already deployed early versions of several upcoming technologies at the FIFA Club World Cup, using the tournament as a proving ground ahead of the much larger event this summer. That allowed us to learn, iterate, and improve before deploying at World Cup scale, he says. Football AI Pro, codeveloped with FIFA, is an enterprise-grade AI knowledge system built with Lenovos AI Factory. The platform orchestrates multiple AI agents to analyze millions of data points and more than 2,000 football-specific metrics in real time, turning raw match data into actionable intelligence when decisions matter most. Analysts can spot patterns instantly through synchronized video, data overlays, and 3D visualizations. Coaches can simulate tactical changes in real time against specific opponents, and players will receive personalized match analysis. The idea is to deliver value across the entire football ecosystem, not just one group, Kurtoglu explained. If you look at other industries, like aircraft engines, analytics completely changed the business modelfrom selling engines to selling engine hours. The same principle applies here. With enough data and processing, you can help fundamentally change how decisions are made on the pitch. Elevating Human Judgment One of the most visible changes fans will notice in this years World Cup is AI-enabled digital player avatars in broadcasts and officiating tools. Using computer vision and generative AI, Lenovo and FIFA are producing precise 3D representations of players, modeled on their actual physical dimensions. These avatars will appear in semi-automated offside replays, offering clearer, more contextual visuals for fans in stadiums and at home. According to Johannes Holzmüller, director of innovation at FIFA, the goal of the partnership is not to automate decision-making but to elevate it. AI, he said, must support human judgment while making its reasoning visible and accountableespecially in a sport where trust is everything. At the Club World Cup last year in the U.S., we tested a system we call advanced semi-automated offside. The key idea is that the moment the system has a high confidence that all the data is correct, that information is immediately sent to the assistant referee, he says. With this advanced semi-automated offside system, we are setting a new benchmark. [It] will shape expectations for accuracy and fairness in tournaments to come. Referee View is also returningthis time enhanced. Body-worn referee cameras, stabilized using AI, will provide broadcast-ready footage from the officials point of view. FIFA expects the feature to give billions of fans unprecedented perspectives on the games most critical moments. Holzmüller explained that creating precise player avatars before the start of the tournament gives the system additional context, allowing it to determine offside situations with much higher confidence. When the system reaches that level of certainty, it can send direct guidance to assistant referees, reducing the need to delay decisions. Under current rules, delayed flags often mean play continues longer than necessary, increasing the risk of collisions and injuries before the ball goes out of play. By improving both confidence and speed, the technology helps avoid those situations and reduces unnecessary risk on the pitch. AI Could Reshape Sport Strategies Lenovo helped us create an end-to-end process, starting from scanning the playerswhich takes only one secondthrough to having a digital asset platform where this information can be used across different use cases, says Holzmüller. Our thought behind integrating new technologies is to make the game fairer, clearer, and safer for everyone involved. Kurtoglu believes that deeper integration of AI and data could reshape how teams approach tactics, decision-making, and tournament planning ahead of the World Cup. Strategies could change. It comes down to how you translate data into insights. The more data you have, the more analytics and AI you can apply, and eventually that will change tactics, analysis and even commentary, he says. That is why this is such an exciting moment for sports and technology. If Lenovos bet holds, the worlds biggest sporting events will raise the bar for how AI and analytics operate far beyond the stadium.
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E-Commerce
Neko Health is taking its body-scanning technology to America. The Swedish diagnostic health clinic, cofounded by Hjalmar Nilsonne and Daniel Ek (also the cofounder and CEO of Spotify), said on Wednesday that it will launch a location in New York City, its first in the United States, in the spring of this year. The 3-year-old startup, which offers comprehensive body scans to monitor risk factors for a range of health conditions from prediabetes to cancer, already has a presence in London; Manchester, U.K.; and Stockholm. For the first time, technology is enabling a fundamentally new healthcare experience centered on prevention, Nilsonne, the company’s CEO, said in a statement. We’re excited to bring our unique model of care to the world’s biggest healthcare market with the opening of our first U.S. location in spring this year. The exact site of the planned New York City location has not been revealed. The announcement comes as Neko Health has seen surging demand for its Body Scan service, which the company describes as a preventative health check for your future self. Scans check for skin irregularities, gauge the health of your cardiovascular system, assess blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and more as a part of a 60-minute assessment. Neko Health says its scans use proprietary sensors, 3D imaging, and blood analysis, and results are delivered on-site within minutes, followed by a consultation with a medical professional to discuss personalized health findings. [Photo: Neko Health] Poised for growth The idea has caught on, according to Neko Health, which says it delivered six times more scans in 2025 than in 2024, with global signups now exceeding 300,000 people. The firms data also shows that of the thousands of scans it completed in Stockholm during 2024, 1.2% revealed life-threatening conditions, and 6.4% found medically significant findings requiring clinical attention. Neko Healths services have caught the attention of the media, and have been reviewed by writers and reporters for publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and GQ, among others, with generally positive takeaways. Its also caught the attention of investors. A year ago, the company announced that it had raised $260 million as part of a Series B funding round. That put the companys valuation at $1.8 billion.
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E-Commerce
Andy Sauer is no stranger to making waves in the beverage business. As the CEO of Garage Beer, he defied the odds by turning a small craft brewery into a national name, despite competing in an industry dominated by legacy players. Now hes looking to shake things up in another popular beverage category: the soda aisle. Sauers latest venture is a product called Roxberry, which hes dubbing the first modern kids soda. The brand launched earlier this month at more than 2,200 Walmart stores, 450 Krogers, Meijer and Harris Teeter locations nationwide, and a handful of independent grocers. This soda is unlike the sugary drinks most consumers remember from childhood: Its made primarily of carbonated water and fruit and veggie juice, contains just 5 grams of sugar from natural sweeteners, and has no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners. A four-pack costs $5.99. In an era when a new category of better-for-you (BFY) soda brands for adults, like Poppi and Olipop, has exploded in popularity, Sauer says the options for kids have largely remained siloed in two main categories: Either they can drink the same brands we grew up with, like Capri Sun or Kool-Aid, which are packed with ingredients many parents would rather skip; or theyre stuck with healthier, less visually exciting options, like seltzer water. Roxberry aims to be a third option thats a win-win for kids and parents. Two-hit wonder Sauer has experience turning a nascent RTD brand into a household name. Garage Beer, which he acquired in 2021 and relaunched in 2023, has shown triple-digit year-over-year growth, with sales increasing more than 500% in the 12 months ended in early April 2025, he says. Its now valued at around $200 million and is continuing to grow, despite an overall slump in the beer industry, according to a September report from The Wall Street Journal. In large part, Garage owes its success to a savvy marketing strategy: Its sleek branding, consistent dialogue with its target audience, and catchy slogan (beer-flavored beer) make it feel like an approachable craft beer for the everyman. Sauer is taking those lessons to Roxberry, which is prioritizing an in-depth brand story and centering everything on the phrase Fizz for kids. That old phrase, Marketing is saying one thing a hundred times rather than a hundred things one time is very true for this brand as well, Sauer says. The idea for Roxberry struck back in 2022. With four kids of his own at home, Sauer noticed that his family frequently butted heads in the beverage aisle. His kids were interested in classic sweetened fruit drink brands like Kool-Aid, but he was hesitant to buy them due to their high quantities of sugar. And so Roxberry came to lifefirst as a powdered mix-in before pivoting to a canned ready-to-drink format that mimics the soda brands kids already covet the most. The sodas initial launch comes in the three most popular flavors in kids beverages overall: strawberry lemonade, citrus, and fruit punch. We did a lot of work to find out which fruits and veggies come naturally with a better mouthfeel, better sweetness, Sauer says. Working with raw strawberries, raw lemon, raw carrotthose things are going to give you more of a sweet flavor naturally so that you don’t have to add a lot to it. Kool-Aid Man energy The first thing parents might notice when they see Roxberry on store shelves is that it looks nothing like the modern BFY brands theyre used to. According to Emily Heyward, chief brand officer at the agency Red Antler that led Roxberrys design, thats the point. When we built the brand for Roxberry, it was before the explosion of the Poppis and the Olipops, but I think they’ve tapped on something similar, which is that a lot of better-for-you brandsespecially in the kids spacesignal that theyre healthier just by being more boring, Heyward says. They strip out color, theyre matte instead of glossy, theyre very plain, to show that theyre different from the old-school brands that we grew up with. The result, Heyward says, is that most of the healthy options for kids on grocery store shelves just dont look very exciting. To combat this trend, Sauers brief was to bring back that Kool-Aid Man energy to the space. Red Antlers answer to that prompt is a brand that looks like it came straight from a sci-fi kids cartoon. From the quirky flavor names Ocean Potion, Pink Lava, and Galaxy Gulp to the anthropomorphic characters and alien landscapes on the packaging, everything about Roxberrys look suggests that its not just a beverage, but also its own universe. All of those characters that you seeand you just see them in little spots on the canthey have backstories, they have personalities. We went so deep, not because we’re planning to launch a TV show tomorrow, but because we wanted to ensure that we really had that richness,” Heyward says. For example, Heyward adds, one character named Chomp Chomp is described as loud, erratic, and entrepreneurial; an instigator who lives in the skies, makes deliveries, and creates crop circles. Even if this character is never officially named, she believes the lore gives the brand depth. While the majority of the Roxberry package is designed to entice shoppers with its bright, character-based imagery, smaller cues, like the phrases No fake stuff and 5g sugar signal to parents that the beverage is not a typical soda. In essence, both Heyward and Sauer agree: Roxberry is designed with kids in mind first and parents second. We were looking at the love we all had for these character-driven brands growing up, and how they felt like part of our pop culture universe,” Heyward says. “Well, why has that gone away? There are brands for adults that have tapped into that nostalgia a little bit, but I think that the kids brands have really played it safe.” Roxberry’s high-octane look gives the healthier-for-you kids beverage category a much-needed branding sugar rush.
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E-Commerce
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