Rio Olympics: the technology numbers
The most recent Summer Olympiad staked its place in history as the competition with the highest levels of digital engagement than any previous Olympic Games. We look at some of the key technology numbers behind the Rio events.
1 - Cloud computing
Cloud computing was used for the very first time in the history of the Olympic Games for the competitions in Rio ahead of a cloud-only Games in Tokyo in 2020.
The volunteer portal for the Rio events, as well as the accreditation and workforce systems were all hosted in a private cloud environment. According to Rio 2016 CIO Elly Resende, the system handled more than 300,000 credentials issued for the Games.
2 - New Olympic sports
Two new Olympic sports were included in 2016: Golf and Rugby. According to IT integrator for the Games, Atos, Golf alone generated more data results than all other sports together.
The addition of these two sports also introduced other technology demands, such as specific sensors used during the competitions and therefore more mapping.
37 – Competition venues
IT integrator Atos installed and managed a complete IT infrastructure across some 37 competition venues throughout the city of Rio.
The peculiarities for services of each Olympic venue were defined at the mapping stage, with technology interventions carried out within a tight deadline to avoid unnecessary costs and hassle for the population unnecessarily.
400 - Security incidents
In terms of IT security incidents, the Rio Games saw a considerable increase in relation to the previous Olympiad. There were 400 security incidents recorded per second in Rio. In London, there were 200 threats recorded per second.
According to Rio 2016 CIO Elly Resende, a large group of work was put in place to focus on protection tools, monitoring work, cyber attack tracking and other aspects, with support from the committee as well as government organizations and institutions to be prepared to "act, monitor and try and act quickly."
Over 100 million - media messages
There were over 100 million messages sent to media customers to share the real time results and data from all 42 Olympic sports and 306 events (up from 58.8 million at London 2012).
The results of all events at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games were delivered to worldwide broadcasters in less than half a second, online and through traditional means, via the Atos-provided IT backbone.