In a historic milestone for African sport, Alibaba Group is partnering with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Dakar 2026 Organizing Committee to power the Summer Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026 with cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
As a Worldwide Olympic TOP Partner, Alibaba will help optimize Games operations, enhance spectator engagement, and establish a lasting digital legacy for Senegal as the country hosts the first Olympic event on African soil.
Kirsty Coventry, President of the International Olympic Committee, welcomed Alibaba’s role in bringing the historic event to life.
“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,” she said.
Mamadou Diagna Ndiaye, President of the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games Organizing Committee (YOGOC), highlighted the importance of technology in delivering an event that reflects Senegal’s identity while creating long-term benefits for the country.
“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,” he said.
Toby Xu, Chief Financial Officer of Alibaba Group, emphasized how cloud and AI are shaping the future of sports and the Olympic Movement.
“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,” he said.
Building Future-Ready Digital Infrastructure
The Dakar 2026 Organizing Committee will deploy a private cloud built on Alibaba Cloud’s Apsara Stack to support the Games’ digital operations. Serving as the event’s digital backbone, the scalable and secure platform will host applications and services, including ticketing and e-visa processing.
Built on this dedicated infrastructure, Alibaba Cloud’s ticketing system will manage online ticket sales and on-site access control for more than one million tickets across all seven venues and the official Festival Site. Its elastic infrastructure is designed to maintain seamless performance during high-demand ticket sales and peak entry periods.
After 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.
The platform will also provide Senegalese businesses and developers access to Alibaba’s full-stack AI innovation capabilities and its Qwen open-weight models. One of the world’s most widely used AI model families, Qwen includes 460 open-weight models and has recorded more than three billion global downloads. It supports over 200 languages, spanning linguistic groups from Niger-Congo languages such as Wolof and Kongo to Indo-European languages such as French and Italian.
Bringing Senegalese Culture and AI Together
At the Opening Ceremony of Dakar 2026, the Organizing Committee unveiled an AI-powered celebration of drumming created using Alibaba’s WAN video generation model.
Centered on the iconic rhythm of the African drum, the one-minute video brought together 100 participants from the Dakar 2026 Learning Academy. Representing young people from across Africa and around the world, they virtually performed drums together, highlighting the human legacy of the Games.
The experience continues throughout the event for athletes, spectators, media, and the local community. Inspired by Senegal’s spirit of Teranga—the Wolof concept of hospitality—Alibaba is using technology to encourage openness, respect, and co-creation in the host city.
At the official Festival Site, visitors can enter an Alibaba-hosted kiosk to generate a short video of themselves playing the Senegalese Sabar Drum. An AI agent powered by Alibaba’s cloud-based technology will also answer questions about Dakar 2026 and the history of the Youth Olympic Games.
Empowering Communities and Developing Young Talent
Beyond digital infrastructure, Alibaba is working with the Dakar 2026 Organizing Committee on initiatives that support local youth development and community participation.
Alibaba Philanthropy has expanded its Panda Pack Project to Senegal, providing sports equipment packages to the Jeunesse en Jeux engagement program. The initiative aims to reach more than 350,000 children across 850 schools, promoting access to sports and strengthening the long-term community legacy of Dakar 2026.
Meanwhile, the Alibaba Cloud Tech Academy offers free online cloud computing training to Senegalese youth under 35. The program has already attracted more than 10,000 registrations.
The Summer Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026 is taking place in Senegal from October 31 to November 13, 2026, across Dakar, Diamniadio, and Saly. The event brings together 2,700 athletes aged 17 and under to compete in 35 sports.
Alibaba’s contribution builds on its experience as a Worldwide Olympic Partner at Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022, Paris 2024, and Milano Cortina 2026. Through its cloud and AI capabilities, the company aims to support the reliable delivery of Dakar 2026 while creating meaningful digital value for Senegal long after the Games conclude.
