GANGNEUNG, Gangwon Province -- Alibaba Group Holdings, the official cloud services and e-commerce partner for the Olympics until 2028, has opened a new cloud technology showcase space at the Gangneung Olympic Park.

The PyeongChang Winter Games is the first Olympic Games for Alibaba to act as an official sponsor and promote its cloud vision for the international sporting event.

The Alibaba cloud technology showcase is an interactive space that shows athletes, spectators and Olympic organizers how Alibaba plans to put all Olympic operations on the cloud in the future.

Visitors will be able to get a glimpse of how Alibaba’s cloud services and e-commerce platform services will change the future Olympic Games operations, the company said.

This includes an array of cloud-based and artificial intelligence-powered solutions called Alibaba Cloud ET Sports Brain, which merges data intelligence and machine learning to help Olympic participants become better engaged with the venue.

“Our long-term partnership with the Olympic Games is the ultimate showcase for Alibaba, both in terms of what we stand for as a company and how we can use our technology to reimagine the Olympic Games for the digital era,” said Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group.

According to Alibaba’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Tung, the firm plans to apply its cloud-based technologies to address various needs, including cloud computing, e-commerce, media content, management systems, content distribution systems and media center operations.

For instance, cloud-based biometric identification at sports venues can improve access control, security and crowd management, while big data-based geospatial analyses hosted on the cloud can help pick out optimal locations for various sports events.

Cloud computing refers to storing and accessing data, apps and programs on the internet, instead of hosting them on a physical hard drive. Public cloud providers like Alibaba rent out cloud space to clients on a pay-per-use basis.

With cloud technology, Alibaba is aiming to help the International Olympic Committee and hosting states drive down the costs of staging the games, which has long involved building from scratch new localized data centers and information technology service systems for every Olympics.

“Over the next 10 years, Alibaba Cloud services will serve as the foundation of our efforts to drive the digital transformation of the games, creating a more efficient and enjoyable experience for all audiences,” Tung said.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)