When it comes to the World Cup, Lenovo is not just a FIFA sponsor, the company is helping power the entire tech engine behind the games.
As the tournament’s first global technology partner, Lenovo is the official PC, laptop, desktop, notebook, gaming system, tablet (through Motorola), smartphone, server, IT storage and solutions, as well as AI provider. The scope is akin to the role of several companies across the Olympics, said Jeff Shafer, chief communications officer, senior vice president corporate marketing group at Lenovo, during a virtual press conference.
“FIFA is counting on Lenovo for this,” said Shafer.
FIFA and Lenovo are working to make this year’s tournament, which is the biggest in history, the most high-tech and AI-powered version. Together, they hope to make this the “biggest event in the history of humanity.”
“Six billion people are going to watch this thing on TV. Two billion will watch the final alone. If you talk to our partners at places like X and Meta and the other major social media platforms, their last biggest day of data transmission, data exchange and communication was the Men’s World Cup final between France and Argentina,” explained Shafer.
“We didn’t sit down and say, what’s the biggest place that we can put our logo?”
While Lenovo will certainly show up on the World Cup pitch boards around the stadium, through experiential activations, as well as on TV, social and digital, the company is also building out the infrastructure to deliver the full stack tech – “from pocket to cleft.”
“Our goal here is to simply show that if we can do these things for FIFA, we can do things for you,” said Shafer. “It’s the biggest endeavor we’ve ever undertaken…It is 104 games in 16 cities over the course of 39 days. Each one of those games is in its own way a mini Super Bowl…We’ll have hundreds of thousands of fans in every city. We will have millions and millions of fans watching every one of those games. We know that the only pressure here is that it has to work every time, all of the time, 104 times.”
Lenovo has created an “Intelligent Command Center” for FIFA which will serve as the tech backbone of the event including digital workplace devices, cybersecurity, streaming and tech inside the venue, which includes logistics, operations, real-time decisions and an AI-powered tool to help fans navigate the stadiums. The company has also created FIFA AI Pro with digital avatars of every player and RefCam stabilization to aid in making better calls.
Before the tournament even begins, players will step into a ring of cameras for a six second scan that will capture thousands of measurements to create a 3D digital version of the player, which can be used to look at critical plays from different angles in replays. “If you’ve ever yelled at your TV about an offside call, you’re not alone. These 3D avatars give fans more context, so you can see replays accurate to each player’s actual dimensions,” said Art Hu, senior vice president for Lenovo’s Solutions and Services Group.
“Our goal is to make the game faster, fairer, more immersive and more connected for everyone who is involved, from the players and the referees to the billions of fans around the world,” he added.
