This year’s Olympics will leverage AI and augmented reality to enhance viewer experience, but their implementation demands substantial data infrastructure, writes Matteo Andreoletti
Sports fans are spoilt for choice this summer. As we draw to a close the hugely successful UEFA Euros in Germany, attention is shifting to the Olympics and Paralympics taking place in Paris, starting on 26 July. While billions will watch these events on screen, about 15m people are expected to visit the French capital during the Games.
The Olympics has its roots in the eighth century BC but has evolved almost unrecognisably since the modern games were revived in 1896, with more athletes, countries, sports and records than ever before. Crucially, there are also more attendees, whose demands have increased alongside the scale of the Games.
This means that the infrastructure required to host a sporting event such as the Olympics has significantly changed in that time too. This year, many of the athletics events will be held at the Stade de France but there are also 15 Olympic and 11 Paralympic venues in Paris. There are several other French cities playing host to venues and even Tahiti will play its part by hosting the surfing competitions.
However, unlike past events, even those hosted as recently as London 2012, where the Olympic Park was part of a £9bn (€10.7bn) regeneration project, or the Qatar 2022 World Cup, the infrastructure requirements for hosting major sporting events have substantially shifted.
In 2024, sustainability and cost implications are paramount, leading organising authorities to use existing infrastructure wherever possible. No new major stadiums were built for the 2024 Euros or this year’s Olympics, although a few temporary venues are being used.
Emphasis is placed on ensuring a ‘second life’ for all assets, be those sporting venues, the enabling infrastructure, or accommodation. So that poses the obvious question: what new infrastructure is required to host these global sporting events in the future?
Events in 2024 and beyond require different infrastructure to those that predated them. Wi-Fi and 5G, for example, is expected in all venues to accommodate a more digitally-minded audience, which requires fibre network and broadband upgrades. As a reflection of this, Paris is one of the first competitions to go paperless, with all ticketing done via apps and codes, which requires extensive data processing and new data centres. Circular economy infrastructure has also been deployed across the Games with some 11,000 seats made out of recycled plastic.
Security is a major consideration, with new technologies such as crowd monitoring lampposts and smart street lighting being deployed across Paris. This not only brings increased energy efficiency and security, but also heightened privacy concerns. Monitoring even extends as far as littering and all the technology relies on fast internet connections. Security measures have always been crucial for mass sporting events, but now they include real-time monitoring and advanced analytics, increasing data demands. It’s not just those on the track who are under scrutiny this year, but everyone in the crowd too – especially if they drop their rubbish.
Expect to see a greater utilisation of artificial intelligence and augmented reality at this year’s Olympics – much of which hasn’t even been unveiled yet. These great advancements in technology result in a far slicker audience engagement, but have a significant data drain, and require large-scale data centres and auxiliary infrastructure.
It’s not just athletes who need to stay cool under pressure; the data centres need cooling too.
Hosting an event in 2024 to the scale of the Olympics is a huge advancement on previous iterations of the competition and this trend is only going to continue. I would expect mobility to be the next part of the event hosting that is significantly advanced.
The ambition for Paris was that it would be the first Olympics to deploy drone links between the airport and the city centre. In the future, unmanned, fully electrified transport systems will be commonplace to move people around. Paris, which has a love-hate relationship with micro mobility, has embraced electric bikes for this Olympics, although banned electric scooters. Whilst electric vehicles will make up some of the mix for this year’s Olympics, much of the attention will be on electrifying the public transport solutions.
The Paris 2024 Olympics will blend ancient athletic traditions with cutting-edge technology. In a digital age, it’s not just about marathons and javelins, but megabytes and gigabytes. So, here’s to Paris 2024 – where the Olympic spirit meets the digital revolution and every spectator becomes a champion of connectivity.
