EWC Club World Champion! From Chengdu Hi-tech Zone

In the early hours of August 23 Beijing time, the 2026 Esports World Cup (EWC), held in Paris, France, came to a close. AG.AL, a club rooted in Chengdu Hi-tech Zone, defeated Saudi Arabian team Team Falcons with 5,300 total points, becoming the first Chinese team in the history of the event to win the Club Championship and claiming the US$7 million champion’s prize.

On August 23 in Paris, France, the person in charge of Chinese team All Gamers raises the EWC championship trophy.

This year’s EWC Esports World Cup was held in Paris from July 6 to August 23. It featured 24 official competitions and brought together more than 200 clubs and over 2,000 players from more than 100 countries and regions, competing for a total prize pool of more than US$75 million. The event used a cumulative points system across multiple competitions, and a club had to win at least one individual title to qualify for the Club Championship. AG.AL competed in all 18 main-event competitions, ranking second worldwide by number of entries.

When French Trackmania player Gwen crossed the finish line, AG.AL from Chengdu Hi-tech Zone finished with a total of 5,300 points, completing a breathtaking comeback.

“This is not the success of a single competition. It is the systematic result of an entire training and competition system. It has changed the global esports landscape and boosted confidence across the industry,” said a relevant official of AG.

The champion team achieved a full-spectrum breakthrough: it won a silver medal in the Chinese mobile game Honor of Kings; reached the quarterfinals in League of Legends and CrossFire; won the individual title in both Tekken 8 and Trackmania; and even took second place in the traditional intellectual sport of chess, contributing 750 crucial points. Its achievements span Chinese mobile games, mainstream PC games, fighting and racing games, and traditional board-based intellectual sports.

AG Club was founded in 1999 and completed its professional transformation in 2009. Its Honor of Kings division, Chengdu AG Super Play, is based in Tianfu Long Island Digital Cultural and Creative Park in Chengdu Hi-tech Zone and is a signature name of Chengdu as an “esports capital.” In 2025, AG brought together international resources and competed at the EWC under the AG.AL brand, winning two championships and one runner-up title that year and ranking sixth among clubs worldwide. Just one year later, it reached the top podium of the world’s premier multi-game club competition, making a historic leap from sixth to first.

As cheers from Paris traveled thousands of miles back to China, an esports celebration for local audiences was also taking place at the Financial City Performing Arts Center in Chengdu Hi-tech Zone. The V26 VALORANT Champions Tour Chengdu stop and the 2026 VCT CN League Finals got underway in full swing, bringing esports audiences from China and abroad together for a citywide celebration combining cutting-edge competition with the deep integration of culture, commerce, tourism and sports.

These two events, one international and one domestic, reveal the true character of Chengdu Hi-tech Zone’s esports industry. As the main hub for Chengdu’s esports industry, Chengdu Hi-tech Zone has actively worked to build an esports ecosystem and strengthen its industrial chain. It has introduced a series of top global esports events and strengthened upstream research and development by relying on leading game and esports companies such as Tencent, Xishanju and Perfect World, successfully incubating phenomenon-level esports games such as Honor of Kings. It has attracted esports clubs such as AG and GG, brought the CrossFire Professional Esports League to the Zone, introduced 10 well-known teams from across China, and built comprehensive venues such as Chengdu Hi-tech Sports Center, Chengdu Zhongyan Grand Theatre, the Business and Innovation Centre for China-Europe Cooperation and Tianfu Concert Hall, as well as an esports venue for the CrossFire Professional League.

In addition, Chengdu Hi-tech Zone has established relevant industry funds and strengthened the industrial ecosystem from multiple perspectives, including event implementation, venue construction and club establishment. It continues to introduce top international events, cultivate local event IP, improve its talent attraction and development system, and connect the full chain from research and development and competitions to clubs and derivative industries.

As a leading esports enterprise in Chengdu Hi-tech Zone, AG Club is located in Tianfu Long Island Digital Cultural and Creative Park. The park brings together leading esports companies such as White Shark Esports, which won the CrossFire title at the EWC 2026 Esports World Cup, and Weijing Le, as well as more than 70 digital cultural and creative enterprises, including Tencent’s New Cultural and Creative Headquarters, Coco Cartoon and Mojing Tianhe. With upstream and downstream enterprises working within “the distance of a cup of coffee,” AG esports, animation, game and AI companies share one industrial cluster, enabling efficient and convenient talent exchanges, business cooperation and resource connections. This industrial foundation allows the club to develop across multiple competitions and connect with global resources. From support for club training to the city’s strong youth culture, the city and the club empower each other. Notably, Tianfu Long Island is also where the animated film The Eight Immortals!, a hit of the summer season with box-office receipts exceeding RMB 1.7 billion, was created.

From Chengdu Hi-tech Zone to the world — from Tianfu Long Island to Porte de Versailles in Paris, and from local cheers at the Financial City Performing Arts Center to peak competition on the global stage, the golden trophies represent 27 years of dedication by one club and the fruits of Chengdu Hi-tech Zone’s sustained efforts to develop the esports industry.

Looking ahead, the development of Chengdu Hi-tech Zone’s esports industry will not stop at hosting events and winning club titles. Next, Chengdu Hi-tech Zone will continue to consolidate the foundation of the full esports industrial chain, focus on Chengdu’s strategic determination to build an “esports culture capital” and a “city of major events,” make good use of its matrix of Grade-A professional venues, continue to introduce top international esports events and deliver distinctive local events. It will leverage the demonstration and driving effect of leading clubs such as AG to attract more teams, event operators, content producers and IP-related enterprises; deepen innovation integrating esports with culture, commerce, tourism and sports; and promote the conversion of esports event traffic into consumption, cultural tourism and digital cultural and creative IP, making esports not only competition on the field but also an important part of the high-quality development of the city’s digital economy.