News DeskDOHA, Qatar – Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), a leading global strategic investment group focused on world-class assets across sport, entertainment, lifestyle and culture, concluded its landmark participation in Web Summit Qatar 2026 on Wednesday. Hosting a record 30,274 attendees from 127 countries at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre (DECC), QSI leveraged the region’s largest technology conference to redefine the parameters of sports innovation. Under the overarching theme of “Art in Sporting Action,” the group demonstrated how elite athletic performance, digital innovation, and high culture are converging to drive the global passion economy.
The 2026 edition underscored QSI’s institutional evolution into a mature, fully integrated ecosystem – presenting its diversified multi-club football ownership model under one roof. PSG showcased the 2024–2025 UEFA Champions League trophy next to inspiring content spanning the entire multi-sport portfolio. Alongside the French champions, SC Braga and KAS Eupen were highlighted as centres of excellence for talent development and youth academy innovation, demonstrating the depth of QSI’s football operations beyond Paris. By aligning its flagship assets with the cultural prestige of its strategic partnership with Art Basel, QSI also reaffirmed its role as an integral part of Qatar’s National Vision 2030 and a custodian of the country’s burgeoning knowledge economy.
In a move to disrupt traditional corporate networking, QSI and Premier Padel debuted “Padel Pitching @ Night Summit.” This activation transformed the DECC Park padel courts into a dynamic arena where startups, investors, and mentors built trust and business relationships through the shared love of sport. The initiative saw hundreds of participants, including representatives from leading public and private Qatari entities, trading pitch decks for padel racquets. Participants remarked that 10 minutes of court time accomplished more than two hours of traditional meetings, successfully validating padel as the “new golf for the digital generation”.
Building on its 2025 launch, PSG Labs utilised the summit to operationalise its mandate as a venture catalyst. The booth’s first floor hosted a high-stakes Micro Lab pitch competition where sports-tech startups vied for the “Golden Ticket”, a fast-track entry into the PSG Labs ecosystem. Winners were granted immediate access to present their solutions at PSG Labs global HQ at STATION F in Paris, using the club as a “living laboratory” for performance and fan engagement technologies. The activation embodied QSI’s commitment not just to buying technology, but to actively accelerating the next generation of industry disruptors.
On the Sport Summit stage, Par Helgosson, Head of PSG Labs, explored how data and innovation are reshaping modern football, while Fabien Allègre, PSG Chief Brand Officer, shared a digital-first playbook for expanding into new markets through cultural insight and fan-centric storytelling.
Further bringing the “Art in Sporting Action” theme to life, the QSI booth featured an immersive, AI-driven art installation inspired by sports. Their “digital canvas” used generative AI to translate visitors’ spoken and written inputs into evolving abstract artworks, symbolising the fusion of human creativity and machine intelligence.
