The Paris Olympics will use an AI-powered energy-management tool from Chinese internet firm Alibaba Group Holding to reduce electricity consumption in competition venues as the organisers aim to pull off the first carbon-neutral edition of the Games.
The Hangzhou-based company announced on Monday that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will deploy its Energy Expert, a data-driven tool, to measure and analyse power usage at all 35 locations across Paris during the games, which take place from July 26 to August 11.
Using deep learning-based artificial intelligence (AI) models from Alibaba’s cloud unit, the tool will produce venue-specific forecasts and recommendations based on real-time power consumption data to help the competition venues optimise energy demand and minimise power waste, according to Alibaba.
Alibaba said it will also analyse historical data from previous Games, including London 2012, Pyeongchang 2018 and Tokyo 2020, to offer more comprehensive analysis of energy-consumption trends and enable better power consumption planning for future Games.
“Electricity consumption is a large contributor to the Olympic Games’ carbon emissions,” Ilario Corna, chief information and technology officer at the IOC, said in a statement on Monday. “With Energy Expert, we can now forecast our energy-related impacts well into the future and accurately measure our progress.”
The organisers of the Paris Olympics have set ambitious targets to cut event-related carbon emissions in half compared with previous editions and offset the rest of the unavoidable emissions by financing projects such as reforestation, forest preservation and renewable energy, making the Games the “greenest” in Olympic history.
Previous summer editions of the Games emitted an average of 3.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, according to the Paris Olympics Organising Committee.
To deliver on sustainability targets, Paris organisers are using pre-existing or temporary venues for 95 per cent of its competition venues and will also use 100 per cent renewable energy during the Games. In addition, they will use biofuel, hydrogen and batteries to minimise the use of diesel generators.
“Energy Expert will further prove its value in the most high-profile and challenging arena of all, the fast-paced and highly competitive world of international sports,” William Xiong, vice-president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said in a statement on Monday.
The tool, first launched in June 2022, has helped more than 3,000 enterprises worldwide manage their corporate- and product-level energy consumption, according to Alibaba, which aims to achieve carbon neutrality across its operations by 2030.
“The insights Energy Expert delivers will form part of the solution to assist the IOC and future Games to be more sustainable,” Xiong said.
Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
