Formula One (F1) has resorted to the data and artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve greater operational efficiencies and in turn become a more sustainable sport despite being known for burning fuel.
As things stand, the motorsport organisation has reduced its carbon footprint by 13% since 2018 and is on track to meet its net-zero emissions target by 2030, according to its ESG ReportIts sustainability efforts include a pilot energy program implemented at the Australian Grand Prix, which reduced emissions by at least 90% in the pit lane, paddock and transmission sites. The British Grand Prix was also powered by green energy alternatives and included the use of 2,746 solar panels and hydrotreated vegetable oil fuel in all temporary generators.
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The organisation is constantly looking for ways to optimise its operations and reduce freight in order to reduce its carbon footprint, F1 IT director Chris Roberts said.
This includes, for example, allowing the majority of its IT infrastructure to be run remotely in the UK. Its use of more efficient systems has meant that it no longer needs to ship 40 truckloads of servers from one circuit to another, helping to reduce the organisation’s environmental impact, said Roberts, who spoke to ZDNET on the sidelines of the Singapore Grand Prix, which was crowned the world champion. Claimed by McLaren’s Lando Norris.
It also means acquiring the right technology and systems that can bring greater sustainability, Roberts said at a news conference with Lenovo executives. Earlier this month, the technology provider signed a deal multi-year agreement with F1further expanding its global alliance to provide products and services including mobile devices, high-performance computing systems and back-end servers.
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Roberts said the collaboration has already helped F1 recycle and reuse more than 800 devices. He added that more than 95% of its old hardware has been recycled.
“In the future, we hope to use AI-powered predictive analytics to enable asset recovery to be even more efficient, predicting when machines could be recycled or repurposed,” he said.
F1 has begun deploying AI-powered devices on the field and hopes to use the technology, along with the data it collects, to extract insights that can improve the user experience for its fans, Roberts said.
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The organisation processes more than 500TB of data during a race weekend and will run 24 races over 40 weeks this year.
AI will be increasingly used across the range of technologies, including AI-enabled personal computers, to deliver the best value for the organisation and its audience, he added. More than 700 million fans around the world follow the sport.
The future of AI is “hybrid AI,” said Matt Codrington, Lenovo vice president and general manager for the Asia Pacific region, where the technology is delivered. Wherever necessary –whether on premises, in the cloud, or on edge devices including mobile and desktop devices.
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This means that an organization’s use cases and data management will determine where and how AI capabilities are deployed, Codrington said. This will take into account key factors such as security, cost and availability.
Security, in particular, is as critical as data, the lifeblood of any organisation, including an F1 team, said James Southerland, director of racing partnerships at Williams Racing.
The UK-based F1 team has increasingly relied on data to improve the performance of its cars, Southerland said, during a press lunch with Williams’ cybersecurity partner Keeper Security ahead of the Singapore F1 race.
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There are more than 300 data sensors on an F1 car, collecting 1TB of data every race weekend, including video files, which Williams analyses to gain insights to constantly improve its cars, he said.
Any data breach can therefore potentially bring down an organization and hamper its ability to improve car performance, he noted.
As organizations look to further leverage AI, including Generative AI (gen AI) To optimize efficiency, they also need to ensure that customer data remains protected, Roberts told ZDNET.
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He noted that F1 has an internal AI working group that brings together technologists from different backgrounds, including media, software development and research, to propose new ideas, as well as an independent AI steering committee that includes representatives from legal, risk and compliance departments. The latter reviews AI and machine learning initiatives to ensure they adhere to necessary standards and safeguards, including AI ethics, he said.
Projects that are detected will be scrapped or modified and re-evaluated again, he added. These measures help ensure that AI is used responsibly within the organization, he said.
Each F1 car generates 1.1 million telemetry data points per second, which are transmitted from the cars to the pits, according to Amazon Web ServicesF1’s cloud partner. The data is used alongside decades of historical data sets to train and power AI models, which generate insights used to drive teams’ race strategies and provide fans with insight into decisions being made on track.
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For example, the Alternative Strategy feature gives viewers alternative perspectives on how races could have turned out if drivers had made a different decision on the track.
