[Industry News] International Olympic Committee announces: Alibaba Qianwen becomes the first official Olympic large model in history

On February 5, on the eve of the opening of the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics, at the Milan International Broadcast Center, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Kirsty Coventry officially announced a decision that will undoubtedly be recorded in Olympic history: the IOC has developed the first official large model for the Olympics based on Alibaba’s Qianwen large model.

This signifies that large model technology is entering the most critical operational processes of the Olympics for the first time. From the dispatch system managing millions of competition instructions, to the broadcast signals distributed to billions of viewers worldwide, and to the complex snow mountain traffic management, Chinese AI will serve as the “core brain” supporting this global event.

01 Why Qianwen from Alibaba?

Faced with fierce global competition in AI technology, Alibaba has坚持最大力度的全面开源策略,推动Qianwen大模型在性能上一步步实现了对美国顶级模型的追赶乃至反超。斯坦福大学人工智能研究所发布的《2025年人工智能指数报告》指出一个关键事实：中美顶级AI大模型性能差距大幅缩至0.3%，已接近抹平。

In specific practical data, Chinese models perform even more impressively. When Alibaba Qianwen Qwen2.5 was released, its 72B version defeated Meta’s strongest Llama 405B model in multiple core benchmarks, causing a震动 in the US tech industry. Meanwhile, in the global developer community, Alibaba Qianwen’s downloads have surpassed the Llama series, maintaining the top spot in global “open source” (according to the latest data from the global AI open source community Hugging Face).

It is precisely because Chinese AI possesses this global technological领先优势 that the IOC’s choice seems so natural. This is not only a commercial合作 but also a display of China’s technological strength on the world stage: we can not only produce the best sports equipment but also export powerful “AI brains.”

02 Chinese technology shines in Milan in all aspects

At this Winter Olympics, Chinese AI technology based on Alibaba Qianwen is no longer just a点缀, but systematically solves operational challenges that have troubled the Olympics for a century.

First, it addresses the global challenge of “communication and efficiency.” The Olympics is one of the most complex events worldwide, involving millions of words of rules manuals and intricate logistics scheduling. In response, the first “National Olympic Committee AI Assistant” in Olympic history has officially been deployed.

Second, Chinese AI has awakened the “sleeping century-old assets.” As a sports event with a century of history, the Olympics has accumulated vast video archives, but these “dead data” are often difficult to access quickly. For this Winter Olympics, the IOC built an intelligent media asset management system based on Alibaba Qianwen,彻底重构了人与数据的交互方式。

From inside to outside the venue, Chinese cloud technology is everywhere. As the Winter Olympics with the widest geographical span in history, Alibaba Cloud supported the construction of a traffic management system, opening the “last mile” from cities into the Alpine mountains amid snow and wind.

03 A “historic moment” for Chinese technology

Looking back at the history of Olympic technology, every significant milestone has been accompanied by a generational leap in communication technology. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics, with the advent of satellite technology, truly brought the Olympics to a global audience for the first time, ushering in the golden age of television broadcasting.

And 62 years later, supported by Chinese tech company Alibaba Cloud, AI large model technology is now opening a new era for the Olympics.

It is proud to say that this historic moment of advancing the Olympics toward intelligence has been created by Chinese technological力量.