Ahead of the official Opening Ceremony of Milano Cortina 2026, Alibaba Cloud has revealed a number of technological firsts will be rolled out to improve operational efficiencies and enhance viewer experiences at the Winter Olympic Games.
Building on developments at Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Olympic Broadcast Service (OBS) aim to continue the transition toward cloud-based, AI-driven broadcasting. Working in collaboration with these organisations, Alibaba Cloud is introducing a number of features.
AI-powered Real-Time 360º Replay systems have been upgraded to enable immersive replays with fluid camera movements and stroboscopic visual effects. The system, which will be deployed across 17 disciplines including ice hockey, freestyle skiing and figure skating, enables key moments to be reconstructed in three dimensions in as little as 15-20 seconds for live broadcast use, said Alibaba. A Spacetime Slices capability visualises individual athlete movements into a composite image giving viewers greater insight into technique and performance.
Alibaba’s Qwen large language model (LLM) is driving OBS’s Automatic Media Description (AMD) system to enable automatic identification of athletes and key movements, generation of event descriptions and tagging video assets within seconds to reduce manual processing time. Natural language queries aim to boost searchability for OBS teams, allowing them to quickly locate, develop and distribute content across multiple platforms, added the company.
The Live Cloud platform has been expanded and will support 39 broadcasters, delivering 428 live video feeds, including 26 in UHD streams, as well as 72 audio feeds. The system aims to minimise setup times, reduce costs and improve flexibility and reliability. Alibaba’s infrastructure will support OBS in debuting its Olympic Video Player (OVP), delivering high-definition live streams to allow smaller broadcasters access to professional-grade capabilities.
Dr Feifei Li, SVP of Alibaba Cloud intelligence group, president of international business, said: “Each Olympic Games presents unique challenges in scale, geography, and complexity. For Milano Cortina 2026, we are applying cloud and AI capabilities to make broadcasts more dynamic, workflows more efficient, and Olympic moments more accessible to audiences around the world.”
An enhanced Alibaba Cloud Sports AI cloud-based media archiving system will enable AI tagging, video search and conventional search, building on a solution introduced for Paris 2024 and improving searchability of the Olympics archive. Managing more than eight petabytes of historical media, the system integrates with the IOC’s media asset platform and uses Alibaba Cloud’s proprietary AI algorithms to drive automation of tagging, categorisation and multimodal search capabilities.
Yiannis Exarchos, CEO, Olympic Broadcasting Services, said “Alibaba Cloud provides the foundation that makes large-scale AI possible, making our operations more efficient and unlocking new opportunities to enhance viewers’ experience and deepen their understanding of the sport and athletes’ performances on the world’s biggest stage.”
