Intel and Alibaba Cloud jointly empower the Tokyo Olympics and Beijing Winter Olympics

At the 2019 Hangzhou Yunqi Conference, Intel and Alibaba Cloud signed a strategic cooperation memorandum and announced that they will work closely in the fields of 360 8K VR, 3D digital twins, cloud broadcasting, etc. for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics; the two parties will also cooperate in the field of artificial intelligence 3D athlete tracking for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In these innovative fields, Intel will provide support for high-performance processors and AI technology platforms, and Alibaba Cloud will play its expertise in cloud infrastructure and services.

Intel and Alibaba Cloud Sign Strategic Cooperation Memorandum to Bring Innovative Technologies to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

 "The Olympic slogan of Higher, Faster, Stronger is highly consistent with Intel's innovative genes," said Rick Echevarria, vice president of Intel's Marketing Group and general manager of Intel's Global Olympic Program Office. "As a global top partner of the Olympic Games, Intel has been helping to bring innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G, and VR to the Olympic Games, demonstrating how technology can change the future of the Olympics and how technology can be connected with consumers and businesses beyond the Olympics. Intel and Alibaba Cloud have a long-term and good partnership. The two parties share a common vision and hope to use advanced technologies to bring exciting and wonderful experiences to athletes, spectators, broadcasters, media, venue operators, host countries and the International Olympic Committee, thereby achieving a more innovative Olympic experience."

In addition to these key technology areas, Intel and Alibaba Cloud will also work closely in other areas to transform leading technologies into better immersive viewing experiences and more efficient and flexible Olympic broadcasting modes, support smarter athlete training and smart broadcasting experiences, serve the Olympic movement, and bring a more innovative Olympic experience.

In the past few months, Intel and Alibaba Cloud have worked closely together in the field of AI 3D athlete tracking for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, as well as 360 8K VR, 3D digital twins, cloud broadcasting and other solutions for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Through the signing of this memorandum of cooperation, both parties expressed their focus on jointly commercializing and expanding these solutions, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will also become a global stage for the concentrated display of the results of the cooperation.

Yuan Qian, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence International, said, "The Olympics is a global sporting event and also an excellent stage to showcase technological innovation in cloud services and infrastructure. As global Olympic partners, Alibaba and Intel can complement each other in terms of technical characteristics. The cooperation between the two sides is by no means limited to Olympic sponsorship, but will also carry out overall innovative development cooperation for the Olympics and related application scenarios."

It is understood that Intel's strategic cooperation with Alibaba Cloud mainly includes artificial intelligence 3D athlete tracking technology solutions for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, as well as cooperation in three areas for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics: 360 8K VR, 3D digital twins, and cloud broadcasting. These solutions are based on Alibaba Cloud's new generation of ECS instances, as well as Alibaba Cloud video live broadcast ApsaraVideo Live, file storage NAS/object storage OSS, private network VPC, smart access gateway SAG and other cloud services. Among them, ECS instances are driven by Intel 5G, AI-related technologies and Intel Scalable Transcoding Technology based on Intel's second-generation Xeon Scalable processors.

The 360 ​​8K VR immersive broadcasting solution is an industry-leading end-to-end solution that provides viewers with an immersive 360° VR viewing experience with a resolution of 8K. This solution eliminates the factors that cause dizziness for VR helmet users and improves the user-side wireless bandwidth efficiency by more than 5 times, making it an efficient application in the 5G environment.

The 3D digital twin solution is based on 3D digital twin modeling. It perfectly integrates the real information of smart venue applications such as the Internet of Things in the real world with the digital twin virtual world, providing virtual reality smart management methods for competition managers and venue operators. It can also develop track simulation, camera position simulation, audience seat viewing angle simulation, venue navigation and other services based on 3D digital twin models and cloud rendering technology, allowing athletes, broadcasters, audiences, and venues to access 3D twin-based cloud services through 5G networks.

The cloud broadcasting solution will accelerate the digital transformation of traditional TV broadcasting. The solution will move as many offline and manual production links as possible to the cloud for processing, which will not only improve broadcasting efficiency, but also reduce costs, while expanding the broadcasting market and providing unlimited imagination space for innovation in broadcast video content production.

The 3D athlete tracking solution for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics uses an artificial intelligence deep learning algorithm to analyze and extract the data and posture of athletes during training or competition in real time through standard cameras, and can develop training or broadcast applications based on this. During training, coaches can optimize training methods for each athlete in a timely manner based on the real-time movement data and posture of athletes. During game broadcasts, athlete movement data and postures can be superimposed on the broadcast screen in a timely manner, giving viewers an unprecedented smart viewing experience.

Since becoming an Olympic Global TOP Partner in 2017, Intel has been committed to promoting the transformation of the Olympic Games and related Olympic experiences, and working with industry partners to use innovative technologies to make the Olympic Games more exciting. The signing of the memorandum of cooperation with Alibaba Cloud will promote the application of multiple leading innovations in the Olympic stage, bringing a new Olympic experience to spectators, athletes and even every participant of the event.