The Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 migrated its core games technology services to Alibaba Cloud, happening against the backdrop of the Covid pandemic, in order to create a safer, more efficient, sustainable and inclusive experience for participants and audiences from around the world.
“The Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 is not just remembered by the excitement and the phenomenal achievements brought by the athletes from across the world, but also for the new benchmarks it had set for driving a more efficient, sustainable and inclusive Olympic Games,” said Jeff Zhang, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.
The IOC and the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (BOCOG) executed a master plan for the Olympic Winter Games. It includes the implementation of key operational systems delivered by the IOC’s Worldwide IT Partner Atos, such as the Games Management Systems (GMS), Olympics Management Systems (OMS) and Olympics Distribution Systems (ODS). These have all been migrated to Alibaba’s cloud infrastructure.
Also, the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 realised a further move to cloud-based services, further reducing the time and cost investment on IT infrastructure, hardware and associated management.
With the advanced cloud-based capability to analyse real-time intelligence, the planning and management for Beijing 2022 was further streamlined and improved for more seamless user experience.
Taking advantage of the scalability, reliability and security features of the cloud infrastructure, event organisers like the IOC can reduce the complexity of the game planning based on intelligence-driven decisions; striking for the right balance between optimising existing resources and creating new ones.
That way hosting cities can also reduce the time and costs associated with the legacy physical infrastructure investment upfront.
Beijing 2022 also showcased a series of technological innovations developed to bring more inclusive experiences for fans in multiple locations. Alibaba introduced Cloud ME, a cloud-powered realistic projection that facilitates remote social interactions.
Also, Alibaba unveiled Dong Dong, a 22-year-old virtual influencer, which was created to interact with fans globally, sharing fun and informative Olympic-related facts.
To deliver the best Olympics content to a global audience, Alibaba’s cloud computing technology also powered the Olympic Channel Services, which brought programs to fans around the world to engage with the Olympic Movement anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
For the first time the distribution of live signals of the Olympic Games over the cloud was implemented, providing Rights Holding Broadcasters (RHBs) with agile and cost-effective options. Through the Olympic Winter Games, 6,000 hours of footage were produced by the OBS and broadcasted to more than 220 countries and territories.
