CES 2022 going ahead despite some tech giants’ opting out

CES, the world’s largest technology show, appears to be in jeopardy due to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States.

On Wednesday evening, exhibitor Lenovo announced that it would “suspend all on-site activity in Las Vegas,” following announcements from T-Mobile, Amazon, Meta, and others that they’d be ditching as well and despite CES organizers’ statements that the show would go on.

T-Mobile was the most prominent exhibitor to bail early in the week. CEO Mike Sievert, one of the Consumer Electronics Show’s featured speakers, publicly announced on Tuesday that he would no longer be doing a keynote and would “significantly limit our inperson participation.”

Amazon decided not to attend the show in-person entirely, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, and AT&T also dropped out on Wednesday, according to Axios’ Ina Fried.

Hisense typically has a large press conference and significant presence in the LVCC’s central hall, but on Thursday, Hisense announced it has decided to make its January 4th press conference fully virtual “to ensure the health and safety of our team.”

The company still plans to have a booth at the show, with in-person walkthroughs for those attending and virtual ones for those covering it from home.

It was followed closely later in the day by Waymo, as Alphabet’s self-driving car company updated its blog post to explain the decision.

“Based on quickly rising COVID-19 infection rates, Waymo has made the difficult decision not to participate in person at CES 2022. We are aiming to still virtually participate in some CESrelated events.”