Pei was born in Guangzhou and raised in Hong Kong and Shanghai, before moving to the US in 1935. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard's design school, and spent the early years of his career designing buildings for a real estate developer in New York.

Pei is known for his affection towards precise geometry and design details. He also had a strong reverence for light, as shown in the famous pyramid of the Louvre Museum.

His significant works include the Jacob K Javits Convention Center in Manhattan (1979 to 1986), the Morton H Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas (1982 to 1989), the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong (1982 to 1989), and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar (2003 to 2008).