One of global e-sports' most prestigious tournaments, Dota 2 The International 2026, wrapped up its thrilling four-day main-event battle on Sunday with Russia's Team Spirit crowned champions.
The premier Dota 2 multi-player online championship drew massive global fans to the city.
Dota has a history spanning more than two decades, with millions of players worldwide. That enduring global following is one reason the tournament has generated so much attention that tickets for the flagship competition sold out within five minutes of going on sale on June 10, attracting passionate supporters from 73 countries and regions.
"For me it's a dream and we have a beautiful opportunity go to China first one and the second one it's international for me. It's wow and it's unbelievable. I mean it's something incredible," said Andrei Butov, a Dota 2 fan.
"I've been playing Dota like for 10 years. I feel so excited. Thank you so much Shanghai for giving us the opportunity to come," said Sasha Naboka, another fan of Dota 2.
The tournament's global pull also attracted international esports influencers eager to experience the city firsthand.
"I want to just watch Disneyland and I want to do shopping, because it's Shanghai," said Nurseitova Dina, an esports key opinion leader (KOL).
Beyond intense in-game battles, the event blended esports and urban culture. A special orchestra performance was held in July, along with pop-up installations at Shanghai’s major shopping malls.
"Many of our players are young people and they want to learn about China and Shanghai. This tournament is a great opportunity to enrich their travel plans. They come to China not only to discover scenic spots, but their favorite competitions too and explore the local culture. This is a new lifestyle for the youth," said Sam Gu, CEO of Perfect World.
The massive success of the multi-player online battle championship significantly boosts Shanghai's bid to become a global hub for esports.
Shanghai has been working for years to establish itself as a global esports hub. In the first half of this year, the city hosted about a quarter of offline esports competitions held across China, while its number of esports clubs ranks first nationwide. The Dota 2 tournament is another opportunity for Shanghai to strengthen its position on the global esports stage.
Dota 2 International 2026 wraps up in Shanghai, drawing global fans
Chinese stock markets dropped on Monday, as AI and tech stocks continued to see-saw, according to China Global Television Network (CGTN) market analyst Timothy Pope.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed down 0.59 percent at 3,882.01 points, with the Shenzhen Component Index, which has more exposure to the tech sector, closing 2.13 percent lower at 13,794.29 points.
Trading volumes on the two indices rose with around 2.01 trillion yuan (about 296.28 billion U.S. dollars) traded on Monday, up from 1.88 trillion yuan (about 280 billion U.S. dollars) last Friday.
Traditional sectors such as precious metals, coal mining, and insurance led the gains, while bio-tech stocks were among the top decliners.
The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 3.21 percent to close at 3,431.89 points on Monday.
The STAR Composite Index, which tracks the performance of stocks on China's sci-tech innovation board, closed 3.10 percent lower on Monday at 1,896.16 points.
"The A-share markets seem locked in this cycle of rally and rout for those growth stocks, particularly in the AI and adjacent sectors. Today was very much on the rout side so, while the Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.6 percent, we saw the Shenzhen Component down more than 2 percent, the ChiNext board was down 3.2 percent and the STAR 50 down 3.1 percent. Those last three are more exposed to the tech rally than the Shanghai Composite. The big losers as I said were AI hardware companies - Shenzhen Gongjin Electronics was down 10 percent, Zhongji Innolight fell more than 7 percent. But they weren't alone because the other big winning sector of the last few weeks - biotech - was in retreat today as well. Investors were rotating into gold and coal stocks as well, and agricultural stocks extended the food security trade rally that we saw at the end of last week. There were a number of stocks across those sectors, all of those were hitting the upper limits of trade today," said Pope.
Pope said the rest of the week will be dominated by earnings reports from some of China’s biggest companies.
"The rest of the week is going to be mostly about earnings. The end-of-August filing deadline is fast approaching. Friday will be a really big day on the earnings calendar. We've got BYD, PetroChina, Shenhua Energy and a lot of big banks as well. Earnings that we are going to see for ICBC, China Merchants Bank and others will give us an insight into how much pressure the big banks are under with their margins. BYD is also going to be an interesting one in light of the government's anti-involution campaign and its efforts to avert a bit of a race to the bottom in the EV sector. And before we get there, there are Nvidia results in the US on Wednesday which will doubtless impact every stock in the AI space," he said.
Chinese stock markets start week lower on AI volatility: analyst
