Exclusive | Alibaba Cloud founder Wang Jian says Paris Olympics 2024 presents great opportunities and challenges
- Wang says 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris gives the company a unique platform to showcase its cloud-based technologies
- For the first time, cloud-based broadcasting will replace the traditional satellite-based broadcasting infrastructure ‘on a full scale’
The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris will present huge opportunities and challenges for Alibaba Cloud, which is the event organiser’s chosen partner to provide next-generation broadcasting, logistics planning and sensorless tracking services, according to founder Wang Jian.
The event gives the Chinese tech company a unique platform to showcase its cloud-based technologies to the world, at a time when rising geopolitical tension between China and the West is putting its tech companies under greater pressure and scrutiny.
Alibaba Cloud won the exclusive deal to become the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) official cloud services partner after beating Amazon Web Services in 2017. The deal, including the provision of cloud-based broadcasting, big data analytics, logistics support and sensorless tracking of athletes’ performance on the field, will run until 2028 at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Wang said.
Alibaba Cloud is a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding, which also owns the South China Morning Post.
While the Chinese company has already provided cloud-based support for both the Tokyo Olympics 2020 and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, next year’s event in Paris will be much more significant, Wang said.