(Yicai Global) Aug. 28 -- International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach visited Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s [NYSE:BABA] headquarters in Hangzhou on Aug. 27 to talk with its founder, Jack Ma, about a future cooperation framework.
Alibaba became a top-tier sponsor of the Olympics earlier this year, with a contract lasting until 2028 and covering the next three Winter and Summer Games.
"I couldn't think of a global marketing platform better than the Olympics," Ma told Yicai Global. The event now covers 206 countries across the globe and nearly 80 percent of the world's population, he said.
As well as marketing, Alibaba can offer the Olympics a range of technologies that are a key factor in their partnership. The online retailer processes 120,000 deals a second during its 'Singles' Day' shopping festival, held annually on Nov. 11, enabling it to provide a more stable online ticketing system.
The agreement official says that both sides will work together in cloud services, e-commerce and official Olympics channels. "We will help the 121-year-old event embrace cloud services and artificial intelligence by leveraging Ali Cloud's global infrastructure facilities and AI technology," Ma added.
Big Data will infiltrate many aspects of the Olympics and help improve data security at the event, Bach said. Alibaba's cloud technology and artificial intelligence will also help the games appeal to younger viewers by making the event more high-tech.
Alibaba is the most recent of the Olympics' top sponsors, which also include The Coca-Cola Co. [NYSE:KO], General Electric Co. [NYSE:GE] and Intel Corp. [NASDAQ:INTC].