Hello everyone and welcome back to the Cognixia podcast. Every week, we get together to talk about the latest happenings, bust some myths, discuss new concepts, and a lot more from the world of emerging digital technologies. From cloud computing to DevOps, containers to ChatGPT, and Project management to IT service management, we cover a little bit of everything week after week, to inspire our listeners to learn something new, sharpen their skills, and move ahead in their careers.
India has bagged quite a few medals at the Paris Olympics 2024 and we are super proud of our athletes who delivered such stellar performances at the event. Athletes prepare for years and work so hard to get to the world stage of the Olympics. Getting an Olympic medal is undoubtedly a huge achievement. France also put in huge efforts to host the Olympics, clean up the Seine River, and organize everything as seamlessly as possible.
But one thing that not many might know is that the tech giant – Intel was the official AI partner for the Paris Olympics. Intel launched a special chatbot on the IOC’s Athlete365 portal to help participating athletes find answers to their queries about venues, guidelines, rules, etc. Many might also not know that Google had partnered with the United States team at the Olympics as well as the broadcasters to incorporate its own AI tools. Alibaba also pitched in to boost sports analysis using its AI-powered 3D modeling.
The Paris Olympics, unlike any other Olympic event held previously, has been hugely enabled by AI. From preventing cyber abuse to better analytics, AI has been everywhere in the event and outside it.
To protect the athletes from cyber abuse which is quite disturbingly becoming so common during such global events, AI is being actively engaged to monitor millions of social media accounts around the world and flag any abusive messages, posts, or comments it encounters.
The International Olympic Committee has brought forth an AI-powered platform to generate automated highlights for key moments in thousands of hours worth of video footage being broadcast to viewers located all over the world. These AI models have been trained on tons of footage from previous events and are super smart in picking just the perfect moments to offer viewers a fantastic experience from their homes.
One of the key advantages of AI is the power to eliminate human errors, making things transparent and fair. It is only obvious then that AI has also been employed to make judging fair, accurate, and transparent by offering very precise metrics for judges and scorers, eliminating any scope of ambiguity and errors.
In recent times, data has become a valuable tool for athletes and their coaches to monitor performance as well as improve it. The Olympics are in sync with this and have engaged AI tools to capture as much data as possible. AI-powered data insights and motion-tracking technology would enable more intelligent analysis and tracking of athlete performance – from diving to athletics, gymnastics to marathons, rowing to tennis, and everything in between.
The Paris Olympics 2024 are also touted to be the most socially and environmentally sustainable games ever. Right from the bidding phase, the IOC has positioned legacy and sustainability at the heart of the Games in line with the Olympic Agenda 2020 which is the strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Games. Paris 2024 is the first Olympic Games that is fully aligned with the Olympic Agenda 2020. The IOC has had a super sharp plan to halve the Games-related carbon footprint compared to any previous Games. There are innovative solutions in place for everything from energy consumption and food to venues, transport, and digital services. AI is being used to monitor energy consumption and the insights derived from this would be used to plan and organize future events with an increased focus on sustainability.
So, what are all the tech giants doing here? Besides marketing and branding, of course.
As we mentioned before, Intel is the official AI partner for the Paris Olympics 2024. Its AI software tools have been exclusively used to train the AI models being used in the event. Intel has also launched the AthleteGPT which is the GenAI chatbot on IOC’s Athlete365 platform that we were talking about earlier. The platform seeks to assist over 11,000 athletes who have flown in from all over the world to Paris and answer any queries they might have about the event.
Intel also helped build a kind of “Digital Twin” for the different game venues which helped with better planning, improved power usage, better camera placement, and easing out any accessibility issues that were foreseen.
Google has also joined the foray and has partnered with broadcast network NBC as well as with Team USA to integrate AI into the workings for better storytelling. After all, a good story always sells, doesn’t it? So, how do the broadcasters use the Google tools, you ask? Well, there are many ways. For example, Google Gemini and the ‘Overviews’ feature of Google’s AI can be used by broadcasters to explain the different aspects of the sports that are being broadcast. Google Maps are being used to offer a more immersive experience highlighting the venues of different events.
Alibaba, as we mentioned earlier, is also a part of the event. It provides valuable multi-camera replay systems with AI-powered reconstruction powered by cloud computing platforms that enable the creation of cutting-edge 3D models as well as facilitating the mapping of additional viewpoints across not one, not two, but a huge 21 sports and disciplines. This undoubtedly, makes for a very thorough and insightful analysis.
AI has increasingly become an invaluable part of sports. From Motorsports to Cricket, Football to Swimming, and Rowing to Running, AI is helping athletes and coaches from all disciplines get better at their game while also offering the viewers an unmatched experience of watching the sports with intelligent analysis and the perfect viewing angles. As far as the Olympic Games go, a lot of the tech is still at a nascent stage and there is a lot more testing and evaluation to be done before some of the tech goes mainstream.
The IOC has already announced that a project on AI for talent identification would be launched globally in 2025 aiming to make sports more accessible and inclusive for athletes of the world.
AI is enhancing sports, there is no doubt about that. It will continue to do so, that is also a given. And, who knows someday AI-enabled games could be a whole new sport, like say drone racing! Well, you never know what the future holds, that is part of what makes it more fun, isn’t it?
With that, we come to the end of this week’s episode of the Cognixia podcast. We will be back again next week with another interesting and exciting new episode.
Until then, happy learning!
