2008 Olympics - the IT ground work in China

We tend to view Olympics in terms of the individual sports, famous and not-so-famous competitors, maybe memories of the city hosting the four-yearly event. But few people think how the event itself came to be.

Athletes compete for just two weeks of the Games, while people such as Jeremy Hore, chief technology integrator for Atos Origin - the company behind the IT for the Games - are working on the project years before they arrive.

Currently Hore is in China, working with the Beijing Organising Committee for the Games (Bocog) to prepare the IT for the 2008 Olympics.

He says: "Even in a year and a half so much has changed here. The amount of infrastructure and construction is quite amazing. For example take the Olympic venues - if you leave it two or three weeks you can see massive changes. The pace of change is extremely fast and that's one of the most interesting things about being here."

Hosting the Olympics is a big deal for any country and city. In many ways it signifies maturity as a modern economy. This was the case for Japan when Tokyo hosted the Games in 1964 and the same for South Korea when it was Seoul's turn in 1988. Now China gets to show what a good job it can do - and the opportunities go beyond leaving a positive impression on visiting spectators and media.

Hong Gang, MD at Gartner China, says: "There are huge opportunities for business. It's a lot of fun for people and will bring a new image of China to the world. What is the technology industry doing to support the event? The state government wants to have new innovation and [foreign] companies finding ways to approach Beijing."

As the technology industry takes off in China, Bocog has brought in some major home-grown tech giants - such as China Mobile and China Netcom - as partners to help the project along.

For the first time ever, the Olympics has an official sponsor of Internet Content Service. Sohu.com, the search portal, won the title to build and maintain content for Bocog.

Hore adds: "In Turin they put the whole Paralympics on the internet. It's definitely heading in that direction. And for this one, this is the first time there is an independent internet sponsor."

Yet surprisingly, one of China's biggest tech companies did not make it as an official sponsor.

Huawei's director of corporate communications, Fu Jun, says: "The Olympic Games is an exciting honour for China. Overall, it will be a wonderful opportunity for the world to better understand China. Although Huawei is not an official sponsor of the Olympics, we are partnering with major Chinese operators for the Olympics. In fact, we have been working with them continuously since 2002."

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The Beijing Games are in fact set to run far and wide, touching seven of China's cities - Beijing, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Hong Kong, Tian Jin, Shanghai and Shenyang. Some of these cities are receiving major makeovers - Beijing for example has closed down large parts of the Forbidden City in a bid to revamp it in time for the Games (much to the frustration of some tourists).

Chloe Ding, a Shanghai business director for BiField Business Resources, says: "The government is putting energy and funds to make this place better and not just on the surface level. Although they have to do it because of the Olympics, there is also pressure because we will be welcoming hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists. But in the end, it also benefits local citizens so I suppose that's not a bad thing."

But while construction companies are busy at work, the IT projects are still in the early stages of planning and testing. And unfortunately for the IT teams, it is not possible to recycle old IT systems from Athens or Turin and slot them into Beijing.

Atos's Hore says: "We spent most of last year doing a lot of design work. There are small changes to everything - the architecture, the systems. There are incremental changes everywhere. We've really been learning from what we've done in the past."

By the end of 2006, Atos will have 60 people working on the Games in Beijing. By 2008 the number will have leapt to more than 400, plus several hundred volunteers.

Hore would not comment on the IT costs for the Games but said they are similar to Athens', which had a combined budget of $1.2bn.

He adds: "I think here the biggest lesson is that there is always a solution. It may not be the way we've always done it. The key point is perseverance.

"The commitment from the government [for the Olympics] is extremely high. They're putting in a lot of time. But if you haven't done business here before, it takes some understanding."