Article reprinted from: Geek Park
Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI
The 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games has come to an end. In addition to the active athletes in the arena, "technology" is another business card that this Asian Games shows to the world.
"Intelligence" is one of the keywords of the Hangzhou Asian Games, and "intelligent games" is also the first time in the history of large-scale international sports events that the concept has been proposed. With the concept of "Intelligent Asian Games", this Hangzhou Asian Games has widely applied many intelligent technologies in both events and city services, achieving many "firsts" in the Asian Games and even international sports events.
From the first appearance of digital torchbearers, to the establishment of the first one-stop digital viewing service platform in the history of the Asian Games, to the full cloud-based system of the event system through cloud computing and other technologies, this Asian Games has made the debut of many intelligent applications. In addition, the Hangzhou Asian Games has also combined sports, technology and art to achieve literary and artistic innovation. The "Ink and Smoke Asian Games Blockbuster" jointly created by artists and Alibaba Cloud AI big model "Tongyi Wanxiang" has won the praise of athletes from Asian countries.
The "cloud base" provided by Alibaba Cloud, the official partner of the Hangzhou Asian Games, is the cornerstone to support these innovations. This Asian Games uses cloud computing to replace traditional data centers (IDCs) and become the computing infrastructure of the Asian Games. The core systems of the Asian Games, including the event management system, event results system, and event support system, are all run in the cloud, and support cloud broadcasts, Asian Games Ding and other intelligent applications.
This also makes this Asian Games the veritable "first Asian Games on the Cloud", and also brings the intelligentization process of sports events behind the Hangzhou Asian Games into a new stage.
"The hard-core technology behind the 'Smart Asian Games' is a concentrated display of Hangzhou's achievements in building the first city of digital economy over the years," said Xu Weihua, commander of the Hangzhou Asian Games Information Technology Command Center, member of the Standing Committee of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee, and deputy mayor. Behind these technological innovations, on the one hand, is Hangzhou's investment and accumulation in digital economy construction over the years; on the other hand, it is inseparable from Alibaba Cloud's long-term deep cultivation in cloud computing.
01 The cornerstone of realizing the Smart Asian Games
In sports competitions, obtaining real-time scores is crucial for the media, athletes and spectators. Whether it is the athletes and spectators on the field, or the audience watching online through TV, mobile phones, etc., they all want to grasp the progress of the game and the latest scores as soon as possible.
Timely and accurate score information not only affects the atmosphere on site, but also the effect of TV broadcast and online live broadcast. At this Asian Games, 5.5G network was used on site, so there was no need to worry about crowds affecting the signal; online, through Alibaba Cloud's cloud broadcasting technology, the audience could enjoy ultra-fast and ultra-clear cloud live broadcast, and the real-time game results could be received in just 5-6 seconds.
In this Asian Games, the core system of the event realized the “second-level” distribution service of competition information for the first time, providing the media, delegations and spectators with a “direct access” experience of information in the stadium. This is the fastest and most practical results release in all comprehensive sports games in the world.
Previously, the core systems and cloud broadcasting were implemented in stages at the Tokyo Olympics and the Beijing Winter Olympics. The 2021 Tokyo Olympics adopted Alibaba Cloud for the first time to support global broadcasting, which was an important step for the Olympics to move towards digitalization. In 2022, Alibaba Cloud supported the Beijing Winter Olympics to become the first "Cloud Olympics" in Olympic history, achieving 100% cloud migration of core systems and further digitalization.
Today, Alibaba Cloud, relying on the successful experience and technology of serving two Olympic Games, inherits and carries forward the technology accumulation in the Tokyo Olympics, Beijing Winter Olympics and other events, while helping the Asian Games to achieve a higher level of digitalization and intelligence. The Hangzhou Asian Games is the first Asian Games to be broadcasted entirely on the cloud, with a total live broadcast time of more than 5,000 hours.
Hangzhou Asian Games becomes the first Asian Games to be broadcast on the cloud | Alibaba Cloud
In order to support the Hangzhou Asian Games, Alibaba Cloud started preparing two years ago. By elastically allocating cloud resources on demand, various other systems were launched in batches from the second half of 2021, shortening the overall time by 15%; after the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games was announced to be postponed, Alibaba Cloud engineers immediately released about 70% of the downgraded cloud computing resources, including servers, storage, databases, etc., and redeployed the resources after the Asian Games re-entered the preparation period. By elastically allocating cloud resources, Alibaba Cloud saved 9 months of resource investment in various aspects for the Asian Games.
During the Asian Games, the three core systems of the event, including the event management system, event results system and event support system, were deployed on the cloud computing platform, realizing the interconnection of data and systems. The three core systems cover a wide range of areas, including 54 competition venues, the main media center, the Asian Games Village and non-competition venues such as ITCC, and serve registered users from more than 40 countries and regions, with a total of more than 100,000 people.
In addition, under the witness of the technical officials of the organizing committee, the cross-availability zone disaster recovery drill completed the overall switchover of the three major system groups within ten minutes, and the whole process was smooth and reliable. During the judo competition of the Hangzhou Asian Games, when there was an extreme scenario where the event messages exceeded 800+ per minute, the core system of the event still ran smoothly, and the stability and reliability were verified in actual combat.
Hangzhou Asian Games Cloud Broadcasting Technology Team｜Alibaba Cloud
The cloud computing platform is like a brain that brings together key data from all events, such as player registration information, event scores, transportation and accommodation arrangements, etc. These data are like neurons, connected through open interfaces and provided to the outside in a standard format.
With the support of the cloud computing platform, the digital construction of the entire Asian Games is like a huge neural network, making event management and services more intelligent and efficient. Through the registered personnel data of the event management system, the Hangzhou Asian Games completed the launch of the innovative electronic identity registration card business within 1 month.
Whether it is online service applications such as the Smart Asian Games One-Stop Service, or the Hangzhou Asian Games Village Smart Operation Platform and the Information Technology Command Center Monitoring System, they can all call these open data interfaces from the cloud, just like other parts of the brain, to obtain the information they need and realize further intelligent services.
With the cloud platform as the cornerstone, this Asian Games launched a series of convenient and innovative software applications, some of which are directly related to the Asian Games, such as schedule arrangement, competition registration and competition results release. Another part provides support for event security, including registration management, transportation management, accommodation arrangements and medical services. The coverage of the core system and the diversity of its functions provide a solid technical foundation and support for the successful hosting of the Asian Games and the needs of participants.
In addition, Alibaba Cloud has also built a core architecture and monitoring system for the Asian Games that features "high availability within a single availability zone and content disaster prevention across availability zones", enabling alarms to be "discovered first, located early, and handled quickly", ensuring stability and reliability throughout the event.
The core system of the event not only meets the various needs of personnel, venues and events, but also achieves "e-commerce level" high availability and disaster recovery in the architecture and monitoring system. It has designed and completed many scenario-based practical drills such as disaster recovery drills, high availability tests, performance tests and current limiting drills, technical drills, and multi-sports tests. It has built more than 1,100 monitoring indicators to achieve 100% early detection and early disposal of alarms, formulated and rehearsed dozens of business emergency plans, and comprehensively and effectively verified the availability and reliability of the core architecture and monitoring system of the event.
The full cloud migration also allows this Asian Games to better implement the slogan of "Green Asian Games". After the Asian Games, the event systems were gradually offline, and cloud resources were immediately released to support other work. Compared with the traditional data center model, cloud computing is more flexible and efficient, avoiding the waste caused by repeated construction and temporary dismantling of computer rooms. At the same time, it shortens the application development and deployment time, realizes the sharing of software and hardware resources, greatly improves the efficiency of resource utilization, and also brings a leap forward in the broadcasting of sports events.
02 AI empowers scenario-based applications of the Smart Asian Games
At this Hangzhou Asian Games, Alibaba Cloud leveraged its experience in cutting-edge technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and AI to deeply integrate into the Asian Games scenarios, empower various intelligent applications, and ensure the successful use of scenario-based AI.
This year's Asian Games will have about 20,000 athletes, technical officials and media reporters staying in the Asian Games Village, which means that it is quite difficult to operate and provide services. Hangzhou Asian Games Village and Alibaba Cloud jointly launched the "Cloud Asian Games Village", the Asian Games Village's smart management brain, to solve this problem. Through the Cloud Asian Games Village Cloud Communication System, participants can not only view today's menu, real-time restaurant traffic, make reservations for shuttle buses and gyms, but also ask questions with intelligent robots and submit personalized needs directly in the application by self-service orders.
Screenshot of the "Asian Games Pass" page of the Cloud Asian Games Village｜Alibaba Cloud
The feature-rich and diverse "Cloud Asian Games Village" mini-program provides all-round support for athletes' convenient lives, enabling them to better adapt to the environment and needs of the Asian Games, while also improving the efficiency of the entire Asian Games and the experience of participants.
It is worth mentioning that there is also a low-carbon community module in the "Yunshangtong" applet. Every athlete, technical official and media reporter in the Asian Games Village can register their own "low-carbon account" to record their green behavior during their stay in the Asian Games Village. This is the first low-carbon account in the history of the Asian Games. Based on Alibaba Cloud's AI algorithm capabilities and dual-carbon products, it promotes and advocates a low-carbon lifestyle to "villagers" through interesting interactions, so that every low-carbon behavior can be recorded and perceived in real time, encouraging everyone to actively participate in environmental protection.
From the launch on September 12 to October 5, more than 15,000 new users registered for the Yunshang Asian Games Village low-carbon accounts, and more than 160,000 carbon reduction behaviors such as the "Clean Plate Campaign", plastic-free shopping, green cycling, and empty bottle recycling have been carried out, with a cumulative carbon reduction of more than 15 tons.
The "Yunshangtong" applet is just a service front desk for athletes, technical officials and other participants. Behind it is the "Yunshang Asian Games Village" smart command platform and operation management backend jointly built by the Hangzhou Asian Games Village and Alibaba Cloud.
The smart command platform uses technologies such as Alibaba Cloud data warehouse, data governance, data mining and quantitative decision analysis, accesses more than 20 system data and about 440 data indicators, and integrates real-time operational data in six areas of people, objects, venues, safety, services, and low carbon in the village. It provides real-time data and intelligent decision-making support for managers including the commander, and realizes intelligent scheduling of village resources and emergency response to accidents. The operation management background is built on the exclusive management background of the Asian Games Ding, providing online digital office services for staff and making it possible to respond to and handle the needs of participants in a timely manner.
AI-enabled smart Asian Games applications are not only used in the Asian Games Village, but also in the broadcasting of the games. Alibaba Cloud has drawn on its rich experience in the Tokyo Olympics and the Beijing Winter Olympics, and applied its experience in cloud broadcasting to this Asian Games. Cloud computing has also made the broadcasting system more flexible and improved the viewing experience.
As the first Asian Games to be broadcast online, this Asian Games has broken through the previous traditional satellite broadcasting method, achieved technological innovation in broadcasting technology, and realized cloud broadcasting, which can bring the freedom of cloud broadcasting where "all roads lead to Rome" by quickly opening a "new highway" for broadcasting sports events on demand for rights-holding broadcasters.
The cloud computing infrastructure provides "Tbps-level" elastic bandwidth, which is equivalent to a multi-lane highway, and can easily cope with traffic peaks during periods of high ratings; the dual-center redundant architecture is like a backup channel on the highway, ensuring the safety and smoothness of cloud broadcast "traffic"; AI-based multi-screen intelligent processing provides a personalized "exit", and viewers can choose different routes and content according to their preferences.
It can be seen that relying on cutting-edge technologies such as cloud computing, this Asian Games has achieved an upgrade from the traditional single "ordinary road" to the intelligent "highway" broadcast. In this Asian Games, Alibaba Cloud has played its technical strengths to truly integrate AI into the scene, meet complex needs, and realize the construction of the Smart Asian Games, showing the world the huge potential of scenario-based AI applications. At the same time, these successful cases have also provided more reliable support for the digital transformation of sports events.
03 Opening the "cloud era" of sports events
With the technical support of Alibaba Cloud, this Hangzhou Asian Games has achieved a number of digital and intelligent innovations. Cloud computing provides a flexible infrastructure for the Asian Games, and all core systems are on the cloud, which greatly improves resource utilization efficiency. The introduction of AI technology allows data and systems to be deeply integrated, supporting scenario-based intelligent applications, such as smart management of the Asian Games Village, green and low-carbon, etc., bringing participants a more convenient and immersive Asian Games experience.
This Asian Games is a successful attempt and sublimation of scenario-based AI in large-scale international events, and also provides valuable experience for the intelligent transformation of the sports industry. With the continuous development of cloud computing and AI technology, digitalization and intelligence will become the new normal for sports events in the future.
Nowadays, large-scale sports events have become a concentrated display stage for a country's comprehensive strength. The exciting duels between athletes on the field show the level of a country's sports training and technology application; the intelligent construction and operation guarantee off the field is also a concentrated arena for the scientific and technological strength and cultural charm of various countries.
In the "new era arena", this Hangzhou Asian Games undoubtedly showcased the elegance of Chinese technology companies. Alibaba Cloud and other companies' digital solutions, with cloud computing and AI as the core, helped the Asian Games achieve many "firsts" in intelligent construction, conveying China's technological progress and innovation to the world.