By the end of 2026, artificial intelligence will sit at the centre of how elite sport is organised, officiated, analysed and broadcast. Football will provide one of the clearest tests of that shift, as the FIFA World Cup expands in scale and complexity, pushing technology deeper into the fabric of the game.
That direction was set out during Lenovo’s Tech World keynote at The Sphere in Las Vegas last week, where the world’s largest PC maker opened the annual CES tech expo against the backdrop of the largest LED screen in the world. Stretching to 15,000 square meters, the display offers an immersive 16K resolution visual experience that wraps around the audience. Much of the technology that powers The Sphere is provided by Lenovo, which co-located its annual Tech World event with CES for the first time.
During the keynote, football and Formula 1 featured repeatedly as environments already operating under AI-driven systems. Lenovo chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang said sport has become a demanding proving ground.
“Formula 1 and FIFA represent two extremes of sport: one defined by precision engineering and speed, the other by global reach and emotion,” he said. “What connects them is the demand for technology that performs under intense pressure.”
For football, that pressure will peak in 2026, when the World Cup stretches across three host countries and 104 matches. Officiating decisions, replay systems and broadcast analysis will depend on platforms capable of ingesting and processing vast volumes of data continuously.
“People do not come to these events to admire servers or edge devices,” Yang said. “They come for the competition. Our role is to make technology work in service of that experience.”
Football as the primary testbed
Football’s integration of technology accelerated after a single, highly visible refereeing error at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. During the round-of-16 match between England and Germany in Bloemfontein, Frank Lampard struck a shot that hit the crossbar and bounced well over the goal line before spinning back into play. The goal was not awarded, despite television replays clearly showing the ball had crossed the line.
This writer happened to be at the game and witnessed the ball crossing the line. But the incident also unfolded in front of a global audience and quickly became a reference point for football’s resistance to technology. It exposed the limits of relying solely on human judgment in a fast-moving game and triggered sustained pressure on FIFA to revisit its stance on decision-support systems.
“Until 2010, football had no technology integrated directly into the game,” Johannes Holzmüller, FIFA’s director of innovation, said during a sports technology panel at Tech World. “The moment in South Africa changed the conversation globally.”
From there, technology moved steadily closer to the pitch. Goal-line systems addressed clear-cut scoring decisions. Video review reshaped how referees assessed incidents. AI has since accelerated how information is processed and delivered during matches, moving analysis from post-match reports into live play.
“Technology supports the game,” said Holzmüller. “It supports referees, players and medical teams. It improves accuracy and understanding.”
That support now extends into real-time match analysis. A new tool called Football AI Pro, developed as part of FIFA’s technology partnership with Lenovo and launched at CES, draws on player tracking, ball data and video feeds to support officiating review and tactical analysis while matches are under way.
“At the last World Cup, teams received post-match reports of more than fifty pages,” said Holzmüller. “Football AI Pro allows teams to ask questions in natural language and receive focused answers.”
The implications reach beyond elite teams. AI-driven systems reduce dependence on large analytical departments, helping narrow gaps between federations with very different resources.
“This helps teams with fewer resources access the same level of insight,” Holzmüller said.
Operational scale remains a constant challenge.
“We operate the largest single-sport event in the world,” Nacho Fresco, FIFA’s director of technology, said during the panel discussion. “Technology has to work across hundreds of matches, dozens of stadiums and billions of viewers.”
AI, he said, accelerates how quickly information becomes usable across the football ecosystem.
Scale, access and emerging markets
When FIFA president Gianni Infantino joined Yang on stage during the Tech World keynote at The Sphere, the emphasis shifted from systems to reach. “The FIFA World Cup in 2026 is going to be the greatest show ever on planet Earth,” said Infantino. “Seven million people will attend the 104 matches, and 6-billion people will watch it from home.
“With Football AI Pro, we will democratise access to data by providing the most complete set of football analytics to all 48 competing teams.”
Infantino also highlighted how AI is being applied to officiating. “With AI-enabled 3D player avatars, we are introducing precise player identification and tracking,” he said. “That is a big advantage for semi-automated offside technology.”
For emerging markets, that combination of scale and standardisation carries particular weight. Most fans experience the World Cup through broadcast and mobile platforms rather than stadium seats. AI-driven production and analysis allow the same match intelligence to reach audiences regardless of geography.
Asked by Gadget about the infrastructure gap in emerging markets, particularly across Africa, Yang linked Lenovo’s AI strategy directly to long-term investment.
“Sooner or later, AI will benefit everyone,” he said. “AI infrastructure is very important, and we are investing not only in mature markets but also in emerging markets. In the past, China was an emerging market. Now we are investing a lot in India, in Brazil, and recently in Saudi Arabia, to drive infrastructure and manufacturing. I hope every continent will not be forgotten. AI and IT infrastructure should benefit all human beings.”
Formula 1 as the speed benchmark
If football tests scale, Formula 1 tests speed. Every race weekend compresses engineering, data and decision-making into hours, with outcomes shaped by milliseconds. That environment has made Formula 1 an early adopter of AI systems operating continuously during live events.
“Every Formula One season, teams transfer 600 terabytes of data each race weekend,” Yang said in the keynote. “That data is received, stored, processed and distributed through Lenovo technology.”
Infrastructure efficiency plays a growing role. “For the sixth season in Formula One data centres, Lenovo Neptune liquid cooling significantly boosts energy efficiency,” Yang said..
Operational experience reinforced that picture during the sports technology panel.
“During the pandemic, we compressed three years of work into ten weeks,” said Chris Roberts, Director of IT at Formula 1. “We moved broadcast production back to the UK while keeping acquisition at the track.”
“We use AI to correct camera colour automatically, many times per second. That improves consistency and removes manual intervention during live races.”
Across football and Formula 1, the pattern remains consistent. AI systems prove themselves first under elite sporting pressure, then spread outward, reshaping how sport is produced, analysed and experienced across regions with very different levels of infrastructure.