Lenovo was established on the 1st of November 1984 by eleven engineers from the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy Sciences. Liu Chuanzhi led this group with 200,000 yuan in start-up capital approved by Zeng Maochao.
In 2005, Lenovo established a new holding company through a two-way merger with IBM's personal computer business which produced the ThinkPad line. This acquisition made Lenovo the third-largest computer maker worldwide by volume and included an 18.9% share ownership for IBM that was sold completely by 2011.
Lenovo markets the ThinkPad, IdeaPad, Yoga, Legion and Xiaoxin lines of laptops alongside IdeaCentre and ThinkCentre desktops. The Legion gaming devices were first revealed at CES 2017 with models Y520 and Y720 followed by high-performance Y920 launched the 6th of June 2017.
Yang Yuanqing replaced William Amelio as CEO February 2009 serving continuously since that time after previously serving as president and CEO until 2004. He currently serves as chairman and chief executive officer having led Lenovo to become best-selling personal computer brand in China since 1997.
In August 2020 The Intercept reported Lenovo imported about 258,000 laptops from Chinese manufacturer Hefei Bitland Information Technology accused Australian Strategic Policy Institute using Uyghur forced labor. July 2020 United States Commerce Department added 11 companies including Hefei Bitland implicated human rights abuses Entity List.