120,000 people populate this Sunday the circuit of Barcelona that hosts the AWS Spanish Grand Prix. The fever for Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz filled the stands of Montmeló with Spanish flags in a weekend that managed to keep the spirit of Formula 1 alive despite the rain. But the fever for this sport goes far beyond the sporting spectacle and the circuit hosts an important business environment these days. 275 sponsors, including those of Formula 1 and those of each of the ten teams, bring out their best clothes with clients and friends so that the show becomes more than just fun. One of the main sponsors of this Grand Prix is Amazon Web Services (AWS)which this year also gives its name to the Spanish Grand Prix, and has been since 2018 as partner of Formula 1. To this day, it also has an agreement with Scuderia Ferrari to which, among other things, it provides service clouds.
“Sports is a great way to show the power of data,” he points out to elEconomista.es Tanuja RanderyAWS General Manager EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), since motorhome of Ferrari, in full circuit. “When our clients come they love it because it makes it very easy to understand how machine learning and artificial intelligence can transform any industry,” he admits.
AWS currently works with more than 75% of the Ibex 35 companiesamong which stand out large banks such as Santander –also a sponsor of the Scuderia Ferrari– or BBVA and hotel companies such as Meliá.
“Deep down, I don’t think there is anything different between one industry and another,” he admits. randy, remembering that there are focuses, such as sustainability, that are transversal to all sectors and that the data allow us to approach it in another way. Thus, he relates Formula 1 to a totally different industry, such as the oil industry, through Cepsa. “We can help F1 with the reduction of freight on trips, giving them remote transmission capabilities…”, he points out, “Cepsa is a good example to make the comparison. We build a lake of data with them: we unify them –97 petabytes of data–, we modernize it with artificial intelligence and machine learning, and we innovate. They are now able to track operational trends in a very different way, with the focus on plant efficiency and usage and what is happening there to reduce their water and energy consumption,” he recounts.
So, AWS recently renewed its sponsorship of Formula 1 and continues to support Ferrari as a key strategy in its growth. “With Ferrari we have been working on the performance of the car,” he confirms, “what we did was combine computational fluid dynamics with high performance computing. In essence, we helped them do their aerodynamic simulations faster and without manufacturing additional parts , because it is done in a digital environment”.
On the organizational side of Formula 1, AWS works in several ways. On the one hand, it launched F1 Insides with the aim of giving fans more information about the decisions and strategies adopted by drivers and teams in seconds. To do this, Formula 1 data scientists trained deep learning models on more than 70 years of historical racing data. These graphics that appear on the screen are complemented by more than 300 sensors generating 1.1 million data points of telemetry per second that are transmitted from the cars to the pits. Until now, AWS has launched 21 Insides – the latest in Monaco last week, which measures the distance between the car and the wall when it goes off track with pinpoint precision – and is working on launching two more before the end of this season.
With the obtaining of historical data and its use to train algorithms of machine learning complex, F1 can predict the results of race strategy with increasing accuracy for teams, cars and drivers.
On the other hand, the collaboration also made it possible to create a new vehicle last year. Using AWS High Performance Computing, F1 was able to run aerodynamic simulations to develop its next-generation car, 70% faster than before, reducing its downforce from 50% to 15%. %.
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