On July 30, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) unveiled the precious images of the 1924 Paris Olympics for the first time, using Alibaba Cloud AI technology to restore the black and white images from 100 years ago to high-definition color images to commemorate the return of the Summer Olympics to Paris after a century. The audience can clearly feel the fierce scene of the Olympic competition 100 years ago in the video.
The restored historical images clearly show the entrance ceremony to the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics 100 years ago. Athletics is the focal point of the event, and with the help of AI cloud technology, spectators can enjoy a colourful version of the incredible strength, speed and endurance of the Paris 1924 track and field superstars. The footage also shows that during the marathon at that time, the athletes drank red wine as an in-race supply.
IOCOG President Thomas Bach gave special thanks to Alibaba Cloud for its technical cooperation. He said that in the past few months, we have been preparing the Olympic AI agenda, and without Alibaba, there would be no Olympic AI agenda. The project is one of the core developments of the IOC's Olympic AI agenda. Bach added: "We are already seeing some results in Paris. When I saw Alibaba Cloud do such a great job of coloring and restoring historical images, we saw how groundbreaking AI will be in the future and will change every aspect of the sports world. ”
It is understood that in the past, the restoration of historical images required a lot of research work, as well as specific equipment and long hours of work, in order to correctly color each frame and each person. But Alibaba Cloud's deep learning model, combined with historians' expertise, can understand color, light, and context to color images more accurately and realistically.
In addition to coloring historical image restorations, Bach said the IOCO's collaboration with Alibaba Cloud has created new experiences for audiences around the world. This year, for the first time, cloud computing surpassed satellite as the main streaming method for the Paris Olympics, with more than two-thirds of the signals distributed globally based on Alibaba Cloud, and a large number of AI technologies were used in the broadcast of the Games. This is another major technological advance since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics began to be broadcast on satellite television.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Li Jia