LAS VEGAS - Intel and Alibaba will collaborate over an AI project which will provide 3D real-time tracking of athletes during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the firms announced this week at CES 2019.

By combining Intel hardware, Alibaba cloud infrastructure, and deep-learning algorithms, the companies hope to provide coaches with biomechanical data during training and competition without the need for special sensors or suits, Intel said at CES on Monday.

"Optimised to run on Alibaba Cloud infrastructure, Intel developed a novel technology concept called 3D Athlete Tracking that uses AI to analyse video of athletes in ways that are expected to improve both the training process and has the potential to enhance the audience experience during actual competition," Intel Data Center Group executive vice president and general manager, Navin Shenoy, said.

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Shenoy added that the solution will also provide broadcasters with the ability to re-examine and analyse highlights during instant replay.

The announcement comes as part of a longer-term working relationship between the Chinese mega-retailer and the chipset maker. Intel have previously worked with Alibaba on its Singles Day event back in November, in which 213.5 billion yuan ($30.8 billion) in gross merchandise volume passed through Alibaba in a 24-hour window.

"Alibaba deployed Intel's latest processor and memory technology to help power the 11.11 Alibaba Global Shopping Festival," Intel said.

"The Alibaba Global Shopping Festival places a lot of demands on Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure to perform real-time processing of massive spikes of data and to support heavy amounts of traffic visiting its web site. To meet the computing demand, Alibaba deployed next-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors along with Intel Optane DC persistent memory in its production environment."

In September, Intel and Alibaba also launched the Joint Edge Computing Platform. This utilises an open architecture that integrates Intel's software, hardware, and AI technologies with Alibaba Cloud IoT products.

Source: ZDNET