Alibaba Cloud는 세네갈에서 열리는 2026 다카르 청소년 올림픽의 클라우드 컴퓨팅 및 AI 기술 지원을 제공하고 있으며, 대회 운영을 뒷받침하기 위해 세네갈 최초의 올림픽 전용 클라우드 기반 인프라를 구축했습니다.

# Dakar 2026 Youth Olympics: Alibaba Cloud Hopes to Leave a Lasting "Cloud" in Africa

The Games are over, but the story of a "national cloud" is only just beginning.

On October 31, 2026, the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games opened in Senegal, the first time the Olympic Movement has come to Africa.

Alibaba Cloud provided cloud computing and artificial intelligence technology for the event. It also built Senegal's first Olympic-dedicated cloud foundation to support the Games' operations.

Drawing on Alibaba Cloud's global data centers, audiences around the world can watch athletes' performances through OBS Cloud's broadcast service. An AI drum performance created with Wanxiang, the video generation model, also featured in the opening ceremony.

According to Leiphone, apart from cloud broadcasting, the Dakar Youth Olympics' core business systems are all deployed on the Olympic-dedicated cloud foundation Alibaba Cloud built for the event. These include applications for ticketing, registration, and schedule inquiries, as well as services such as event navigation and athlete services.

After the Games, this "event cloud" will be handed over in its entirety to Senegal and converted into a "national cloud" platform to continue supporting the country's digital transformation.

A sporting event may bring more than a single cloud service contract. If the cloud keeps running after the Games and carries the businesses of local governments and enterprises, Alibaba Cloud could move beyond its role as a technology provider for the event and become a participant in building the country's digital infrastructure.

Keeping the cloud running over the long term will test Alibaba Cloud's localization capabilities.

## Building a Cloud in Africa Is More Than Moving Domestic Technology Abroad

Alibaba Cloud overcame a number of obstacles on the Dakar Youth Olympics project.

The most immediate challenge came from the infrastructure environment.

Local power and network conditions are unstable. To ensure high availability of the cloud platform during the Games, Alibaba Cloud's proprietary cloud team set up a dual-availability-zone disaster recovery system in Senegal and ran extensive drills.

In addition, given the bursts of traffic likely during the Games, Alibaba Cloud introduced public cloud CDN technology, using a hybrid cloud architecture to ease bandwidth bottlenecks and improve the platform's elasticity.

However, the difficulties of overseas delivery go beyond technical architecture design. They also include whether local staff can truly master the technology, whether the infrastructure can support stable system operation, and whether the team can respond promptly in emergencies.

For example, early in the project, disaster recovery failover depended heavily on manual operation. Onsite teams had to rehearse repeatedly to move from simply being able to switch over to being willing and skilled at doing so.

Beyond infrastructure, language and culture also presented hurdles.

One typical example: the term "public-private integration" (公专一体), which domestic customers are familiar with, may not be understood by overseas clients if translated directly. Communication became much easier when the team used expressions such as "Cloud Native," which align more closely with local technical frames of reference.

Moving from an "event cloud" to a "national cloud" also brings substantial challenges. Who will operate the platform afterward, which customers it will serve, how it will generate ongoing revenue, and whether the country has the capacity for independent management will all determine whether the cloud can truly remain.

"Giving someone a fish is not as good as teaching them to fish." In the view of Liu Guohua, Vice President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group and General Manager of its Proprietary Cloud business, many African countries are willing to embrace new technology but lack the ability to use and operate it.

For this reason, Alibaba Cloud hopes to help local partners build the capacity for self-directed learning and operations and maintenance through local services, around-the-clock global emergency support, and a training and certification system.

This shows that what Alibaba Cloud delivers is not just a cloud platform but an entire set of technical capabilities and service systems. Only if local teams can truly use, manage, and run the system can the cloud become a long-term national infrastructure asset that benefits the country's digital development over time.

## Less Than 5% of Business, Nearly 50% of Resources

Compared with the technical and delivery challenges, the commercial side of Alibaba Cloud's international proprietary cloud business may better illustrate how difficult this path is.

Liu Guohua revealed that Alibaba Cloud's international proprietary cloud business nearly doubled in the first half of the year, but it still accounts for less than 5% of the company's overall business. In contrast, the resources devoted to the international business are close to 50% of the division's total.

This means Alibaba Cloud's current investment in international proprietary cloud far exceeds its share of business revenue.

But this is a long-term game. Liu noted that an overseas project can take two to three years from first customer contact to actual implementation. As a result, the international business cannot be measured by simple monthly KPIs and must instead be judged over annual, or even three-year, cycles.

This differs from the relatively mature sales rhythm of the domestic market.

In China, customer needs, procurement processes, delivery teams, and service systems are comparatively well established, and cloud providers have clear business cycles for organizing sales and delivery. Overseas, by contrast, much time is often needed upfront to build customer relationships, understand policy and market conditions, and find local partners before projects can gradually take shape.

Signing a contract is also only the beginning. Local hardware procurement, staff training, system deployment, and ongoing operations and maintenance can all lengthen the delivery cycle.

For this reason, profit from the Games itself is not the only goal. If the "event cloud" can serve as an entry point into building the local digital infrastructure and gradually establish customer relationships and service capabilities, it could bring in more government and enterprise cloud business and open new growth space for the international proprietary cloud business.

## Second Year of the "Dual-I" Strategy: New Overseas Opportunities

For domestic cloud providers, overseas markets are opening up new opportunities.

Last September, Alibaba Cloud unveiled its "Dual-I" strategy for Feitian Enterprise Edition over the next decade, with AI (intelligence) as the technical direction and International (globalization) as the market direction.

Although internationalization brings many localization challenges, it also creates new market opportunities.

The domestic market is highly competitive and its customer needs are complex. Over years of practice, cloud providers have accumulated extensive technical capabilities and industry solutions. In overseas markets where digital development is still at an early stage, these capabilities may find new applications.

"Solutions that get rejected domestically can sometimes be highly competitive internationally." Using Cambodia as an example, Liu said that the country's 5G rollout and digital transformation are still in their early stages, and China's relatively mature e-government and smart city ("city brain") solutions may be more competitive in some overseas markets.

In the second year of the "Dual-I" strategy, the way Alibaba Cloud participates in overseas markets is also changing. Rather than being limited to providing cloud resources, deploying systems, or delivering individual projects, the company is beginning to take part in building local cloud platforms and digital infrastructure. Through technical support, talent training, and local services, it aims to help customers build long-term operational capabilities.

Still, the road from an "event cloud" to a "national cloud" that can operate sustainably is long. For Alibaba Cloud, internationalization is more like a long-term commitment that requires upfront investment and patience.