Chinese multinational raised the bar for television coverage, now bosses eye bringing their expertise to the game’s mainstream
Having created one of the runaway television hits of this summer’s Fifa World Cup, Lenovo is plotting to up the AI ante for the women’s version next year in Brazil.
In addition to building digital twins for all 1,248 players to enhance semi-automated offside technology for the 2026 finals, labelled “the first AI World Cup”, and rolling out an analytical tool aimed at “democratising football”, the tech giants were responsible for Ref Cam, which made its major tournament debut in North America.
Ken Wong, executive vice-president of Lenovo, said the company was “exploring with Fifa what else we can bring” for future tournaments, as well as looking at how they can bring the technology “into the football mainstream”.
“These technologies are only available for Fifa right now, but we want to replicate them so they’re available for everyone,” added Wong, who also serves as president of Lenovo’s solutions and services group.
In the six-to-nine months before the World Cup, Lenovo was tasked with considerably reducing a 40-second wait time for broadcast-quality Ref Cam images.
“There’s a juicy story behind it,” said Wong, talking exclusively to the South China Morning Post in Atlanta.