In the romantic city of Paris, the Seine River is shining with stars. The 2024 Summer Olympics opened grandly on the evening of July 26 local time. This feast that combines romance, technology and humanities not only brings a double enjoyment of vision and hearing to global audiences, but also shows the unique charm of French culture and highlights the deep integration of technology and humanities.
Previous Olympic Games have always been a concentrated display platform for technological innovation. This year's Paris Olympics is no exception. As early as the press conference held by the International Olympic Committee on the 24th, it mainly announced the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of sports. More than 180 potential AI application scenarios have been identified, aiming to maximize the influence of AI in the field of sports.
This Paris Olympics is the first Olympic Games to use AI technology on a large scale, realizing the full-process and full-scenario application of AI technology. AI is fully integrated into pre-match training, in-match penalties, and online violence monitoring, greatly improving the efficiency and fairness of the event. Next, let's take a look at what dazzling "AI technology" has appeared in the Paris Olympics with Xiao Ming!
01 AI intelligent assisted training
Source: International Olympic Committee official website
The International Olympic Committee introduced AI talent identification technology in detail through a short video: using AI to analyze millions of indicators and data points of testers to identify athletic talents. It can formulate personalized training plans for each athlete's characteristics to improve training results. The system integrates artificial intelligence, big data and Internet of Things technologies, and provides scientific training suggestions by collecting and analyzing athletes' data in real time.
Olympic champion Quan Hongchan said that she would use Baidu AI diving auxiliary training system to pick out the details of the movements in her usual training;
Olympic champion Chen Yuxi also believes that this system can help her better master the key points of the movements, such as opening time and water entry control;
During the training stage, the Chinese National Sailing and Windsurfing Team used the personal intelligent body "Xiaotian" built into Lenovo AI PC to assist athletes in formulating exclusive training plans, and also used Lenovo AI PC to analyze body movements and movement trajectories of videos shot during training.
In addition to the Chinese national team, teams from all over the world also widely adopted various intelligent auxiliary training technologies in the Paris Olympics. For example, some teams used virtual reality (VR) technology for simulation training to help athletes adapt to the competition environment in advance and improve their ability to cope with the competition. At the same time, some teams used intelligent robots for rehabilitation training. This high-tech rehabilitation method effectively improved the recovery speed of athletes, allowing them to return to the competition faster.
In addition, optimizing training plans and competition strategies through big data analysis has also become a routine operation for each team. The application of these intelligent auxiliary training technologies not only improves the training efficiency and competitive level of athletes, but also makes the Paris Olympics a display stage for the perfect integration of technology and sports.
02 AI Multi-lens Enhanced Replay System
The application of Alibaba Cloud AI-enhanced new broadcasting technology - Multi-lens Replay System in the Paris Olympics is a revolutionary sports broadcasting practice. Audiences are no longer limited to a single viewing angle, but can appreciate every detail of the game from multiple angles and in all directions.
The multi-lens replay system is a new broadcasting method achieved by using Alibaba Cloud's powerful AI technology and computing power, combined with multi-camera shooting and 3D reconstruction technology. The system can capture, process and generate high-quality 3D models and virtual perspective images in real time during the game, providing viewers with a multi-angle, immersive viewing experience.
Image source: Alibaba Cloud
Strong strength in cloud computing and AI
From satellite broadcasting to cloud broadcasting, Alibaba Cloud AI has taken the digitization of the Olympics to a new level. It presents technical innovations such as "bullet time" replay and three-dimensional freeze-frame images, which brings huge visual shock to global audiences and subverts the Olympic viewing experience.
The technology will be deployed in multiple competition scenarios, including rugby sevens, badminton, athletics, basketball, beach volleyball, table tennis, wrestling, tennis, judo, breakdancing, BMX freestyle and skateboarding. This means that when watching these games, the audience can enjoy multi-angle, high-quality playback images; they can see the athletes' still images like in science fiction movies, and multi-angle viewing to enhance the magical effects such as slow motion and time freeze.
Improve the accuracy of referee work 1
The Olympic site also uses AI-driven intelligent stroboscopic analysis technology to provide faster, more relevant and more insightful data.
For example, in diving competitions, artificial intelligence cameras can capture the movements of divers in real time. Thanks to the artificial intelligence model, diving can be broken down into sequences and analyzed in less than one tenth of a second.
(Source: OMEGA)
In this way, referees can get detailed information on the diving height, the number of aerial rotations, and even measure the distance between the divers' legs and torso when they rotate, and the scoring tends to be fairer.
At the same time, the analysis results can be shared with fans in real time and help clarify the reasons for scoring or losing points.
Improve the accuracy of referee work 2
In this Olympic Games, a smart chip was implanted in the inner liner of the football, which is the official designated ball. This chip can complete 500 recognition actions in 1 second. Through real-time sensing of sensors and body tracking technology, it can assist in judging whether athletes have handballs, offsides, etc.
The implantation of smart chips effectively improves the accuracy and transparency of game judgments, and greatly improves the accuracy of judgments.
03 Make the game worry-free
AI network public opinion monitoring
"Personal violence threats, abuse and harassment on the Internet will seriously affect the physical, emotional and mental health of athletes."
——SafeSport International
It is expected that more than 10,500 athletes will participate in 32 events at the Paris Olympics. The International Olympic Committee expects that 500 million social media posts will be generated during this Olympic Games.
In order to protect athletes from the harm of cyber violence, the International Olympic Committee used artificial intelligence technology for the first time to provide athletes and officials with a safe online space. The system monitors thousands of accounts on major social media platforms in real time, supports more than 35 languages, identifies and marks content with cyber violence tendencies to protect athletes from cyber violence.
The system will use AI to monitor social media accounts and mark harmful insults so that relevant platforms can intervene.
This means that the AI monitoring system will delete offensive and threatening posts before athletes read the articles, helping athletes to focus more on the competition and protect their physical and mental health.
AI Life Assistant
Athletes can use the AI chatbot assistant on the Athlete365 platform. This app can support 6 languages and always be a personal guide.
Push customized information on demand, from travel instructions to event rules; it can also answer questions about venues, schedules and logistics, helping athletes to have no worries and focus on the event sprint.
Digital twin optimizes crowd control
In order to implement the concept of green Olympics, 95% of the venues for this Olympics were converted from the original old venues or temporarily built next to the landmark buildings in Paris, but this puts high demands on the venues' emergency management capabilities.
Competition organizers can use this system to simulate different weather and crowd flow conditions and optimize event organization in advance. Olympic broadcasters can use the system to remotely try different camera positions and determine the most suitable shooting position in advance. Athletes and volunteers can feel the atmosphere of the stadium in the virtual world in advance and prepare themselves mentally before the game starts. The system will become a collaborative platform for Olympic staff, enabling real-time updates of safety conditions, visual staff deployment, and planning of crowd control work.
The Olympics leads the AI transformation
AI+sports has great potential
The black technology in the Paris Olympics is far more than that. The Internet of Things (IoT) is widely used, and China's smart manufacturing is based on advanced technology and intelligent production. Not only are there many Chinese companies producing various categories of mascot products for the Paris Olympics, but there are also many Chinese sports manufacturing companies such as Guangzhou Shuangyu, Hebei Yingli Ao, and Taishan Sports participating in it, providing materials and equipment with international leading technology with independent intellectual property rights for the Paris Olympics.
These cutting-edge practices not only demonstrate the extraordinary potential of AI technology in sports events, promote the rapid improvement of event data processing, ensure unprecedented accuracy, but also greatly enrich the audience's viewing enjoyment and create an unprecedented immersive experience.
These remarkable achievements not only laid a solid foundation for the complete success of the Paris Olympics, but also opened up a new path for the deep integration of [AI+Sports].
