Alibaba Brings Cloud and AI to the First Youth Olympic Games in Africa

• Dedicated cloud infrastructure powers Dakar 2026's operations and will serve as Senegal's national cloud platform post Games

• AI capabilities bring Senegal's iconic Teranga spirit to life at the Opening Ceremony

DAKAR, SENEGAL – Media OutReach Newswire – 2 November 2026 – In a historic milestone for African sport, Alibaba Group, in partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Dakar 2026 Organizing Committee, will power the Summer Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026 (Dakar 2026) with its cloud and AI technology. As a Worldwide Olympic TOP Partner, Alibaba will optimize operations and elevate spectator engagement for Dakar 2026, and deliver a lasting digital legacy for Senegal.

Kirsty Coventry, President of the International Olympic Committee, said: "Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games are the first Olympic event taking place on African soil. I'm delighted that our Worldwide Olympic Partner, Alibaba, is helping bring this historic moment to life. Through its cloud and AI technology, Alibaba is helping the Games run more smoothly and bringing fans around the world closer to the action."

Mamadou Diagna Ndiaye, President of the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games Organizing Committee (YOGOC), said: "We want Dakar 2026 to feel ambitious, welcoming and unmistakably Senegalese. The right technology will help us run the Games smoothly and give young athletes, visitors and audiences a connected experience from the moment they arrive. It will also leave us with stronger digital capabilities to support future events and public services."

Toby Xu, Chief Financial Officer, Alibaba Group, said: "Sport is now a truly digital experience, and audiences expect more ways to follow and engage with the action. Cloud and AI capabilities are helping the industry respond by making services easier to scale and adapt. As a Worldwide Olympic Partner for nearly a decade, Alibaba has consistently helped drive the Olympic Movement forward-moving from digitalization to intelligence through technological innovation. For Dakar 2026, we look forward to seeing how these technologies continue to shape the future of the Olympic Movement and beyond."

Future-ready digital infrastructure to boost operational efficiency

The Dakar 2026 Organizing Committee will deploy a private cloud built on Alibaba Cloud's Apsara Stack for the Games' digital operations. Serving as the event's digital backbone, this scalable and secure cloud platform will host applications and services such as ticketing and e-visa processing.

Running on this dedicated cloud infrastructure, the ticketing system built by Alibaba Cloud will handle online ticket sales and on-site access control for over one million tickets across all seven venues and the official Festival Site. The highly elastic infrastructure will ensure seamless performance during high-demand sales windows and peak entry periods.

Upon completion of the Games, the private cloud infrastructure will be handed over to Senegal to serve as a national cloud platform, supporting the country's long-term digital transformation and leaving a lasting technological legacy.

After the Games, businesses and developers in Senegal can tap into Alibaba's full-stack capabilities for AI innovation through this cloud platform and Alibaba's Qwen open-weight models. As one of the world's most popular AI model families, Qwen boasts 460 open-weight models and over 3 billion global downloads. It supports over 200 languages worldwide, spanning diverse linguistic groups from Niger-Congo languages like Wolof and Kongo, to Indo-European languages such as French and Italian.

Fusing culture and AI at Dakar 2026

At the Opening Ceremony of Dakar 2026, the Organizing Committee unveiled an AI-powered celebration of drum performance created using Alibaba's WAN video generation model. Centered around the iconic rhythm of the African drum, the one-minute video brought together 100 participants from the Dakar 2026 Learning Academy—representing youth from across Africa and around the world who embody the human legacy of the Games—virtually performing drum together.

The experience continues throughout the Games for athletes, spectators, media and the local community. Embracing Senegal's spirit of Teranga, the Wolof concept of hospitality, Alibaba is utilizing technology to foster openness, respect, and co-creation in the host city. At the official Festival Site, visitors can step into a kiosk hosted by Alibaba to generate a short video of themselves playing the Senegalese Sabar Drum. Additionally, an AI agent powered by Alibaba's cloud-based AI technology answers questions about Dakar 2026 and the history of the Youth Olympic Games.

Community empowerment and youth development

Beyond technology infrastructure, Alibaba is collaborating with the Dakar 2026 Organizing Committee to drive local youth development initiatives alongside the Games. Alibaba Philanthropy has expanded its Panda Pack Project to Senegal, providing sports equipment packages to the Jeunesse en Jeux engagement program. Aiming to reach over 350,000 children across 850 schools, this initiative reinforces the long-term legacy of Dakar 2026 by promoting sports accessibility in local communities.

In addition, the Alibaba Cloud Tech Academy provides free online cloud computing training for Senegalese youth under 35, already drawing over 10,000 registrations.

The Summer Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026 is taking place in Senegal from 31 October to 13 November 2026 across Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly. The event brings together 2,700 athletes aged 17 or under to compete across 35 sports.

Alibaba's contribution to Dakar 2026 builds on its proven track record as a Worldwide Olympic Partner at Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022, Paris 2024, and Milano Cortina 2026. This experience will support reliable event delivery while creating meaningful digital value for Senegal.

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About Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group is a global technology company focused on AI + Cloud and commerce. We empower consumers and enterprises with our full-stack AI capabilities and services, from applications to compute infrastructure. Our AI technology based on the Qwen family of large language and multimodal models powers the intelligence behind our services across enterprise solutions and consumer platforms. Our commerce business puts consumers first and provides the technology and marketing reach to help merchants, brands, retailers and small businesses to engage with customers and operate efficiently.

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SHANGHAI, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 2 November 2026 – The main forum of the Global Data Ecosystem Conference 2026 was held in Shanghai on October 30, with industry experts and business leaders discussing international digital collaboration and the integration of data and artificial intelligence.

Under the theme of "Data Intelligence Connecting the World," the conference also unveiled new initiatives and discussed efforts to boost the practical use of data technologies across various industries.

During the opening ceremony, the China Meteorological Administration introduced two key initiatives: The Shanghai Node for International Exchange of Earth System Data and Trusted Data Space for the Meteorological Industry. These achievements are expected to empower smart city development and support the high-quality growth of the digital economy.

In addition, the Working Group for the World Data Organization Maritime and Trade Digitization Specialized Committee was officially established. Building on Shanghai's strengths in shipping and trade, the group is expected to support the smart upgrading of port and trade operations.

Song Xianrong, director of the International Data Governance Cooperation Department of the National Data Administration, and Wu Jianxiong, chairman of Shanghai Data Group, attended the launch ceremony.

The conference also officially launched the China-Kazakhstan Industrial Cooperation in Digital Economy initiative, through which the two countries will collaborate in areas including digital economy industry research, co-development of cross-border digital infrastructure, smart city construction, and the development of data factor markets.

Moreover, the conference held an awards ceremony for the Shanghai regional leg of the 2026 Data Elements × Competition (a national contest aimed at unlocking the multiplier effect of data as a production factor). The event in Shanghai covered 20 major categories, including meteorological services, manufacturing, financial services, green and low-carbon development, and healthcare, with 143 teams receiving awards. The winning projects will be supported in moving from the competition stage into real-world industrial applications.

The Token Industry Ecosystem Synergy Initiative was also unveiled by the National Data Development Research Institute, a research institute directly under China's National Data Administration, and several leading companies across the industry chain. The initiative aims to advance the development of standards, evaluation, and practical application scenarios for the "token" sector, while forging new pathways for measuring, pricing, and circulating data — with the AI token as the unit of account — in the era of large AI models.

Experts Discuss Emerging Industry Trends

At the main forum, Sun Shengli, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered a speech on specialized data center architecture and sustainable ecology as well as the underlying support path for scientific data mining and utilization.

A representative from Kazakhstan shared the country's experience in developing the digital economy, opening up new perspectives for digital cooperation with China. Joe Weinman, founder of the International Institute for Future Industries and a pioneer in AI economics, analyzed industry transformation driven by data.

Vincenzo Aquaro, Chief of the Digital Government Branch in UN DESA's Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government, focused on the era of AI agents and shared cutting-edge research on the global development of digital government.

Wu Jianxiong, chairman of Shanghai Data Group, said the firm will build an open, shared, and mutually beneficial platform for communication, engage deeply in the reform of data as a factor of production, and work alongside industry partners to foster the coordinated development of data resources.

Technological and Industrial Innovations Unveiled

During the forum, a carbon footprint certification chain for recyclable materials was launched. By leveraging data capabilities, this system enables end-to-end traceability and management of recyclable materials, empowering the circular economy to scale up and standardize.

UniTrust, a trusted governance platform for AI agents developed by the Shanghai Electronic Certificate Authority Center, was also unveiled. The platform is intended to establish a foundational layer of digital trust to ensure the secure and reliable circulation of data factors.

In addition, the first batch of high-quality datasets from AIsaisi, a one-stop open community for AI-driven scientific research, was released, providing data resources to support cutting-edge scientific research and innovation.

The National Data Development Research Institute, Shanghai Data Group, and Shanghai Data Research Institute also jointly released a series of research findings on the integrated development of blockchain, data, and AI.

Hashtag: #GlobalDataEcosystemConference

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