This Saturday (6), the new season of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship begins in São Paulo. The national stage, which is sponsored by Google’s cloud computing area, will be officially called the 2025 São Paulo Google Cloud E-Prix. The partnership, however, goes beyond the name.
The multi-year union was announced last season of Formula E, and as part of the alliance, Google Cloud resources will be used to drive the championship’s mission to redefine motorsport and electric racing through its technology, including Google Cloud’s enterprise-ready AI platform, Vertex AI and Gemini.
At the heart of the partnership is the mission to demonstrate the potential of AI to drive positive impact. For Big Tech, the investment may not be the only one in a sport, but it is the most strategic and comprehensive partnership. “Because there is the brand sponsorship side, but also the integration of technology, with engineering teams working to look at the application of technology”, says Milena Leal, Head of Google Cloud Brazil.
The executive also states that the partnership is very relevant and quite strategic from the point of view of the connection between purpose, sustainability, the use of technology and artificial intelligence. “And, within our company, this union generates a lot of information about AI use cases and ways in which we can replicate this in other ways. It is an inspiration for us”, he states.
For sport, the objective is to use technology for integrations. “For example, we have a lot of difficulty creating a digital twin — a digital version of the race — because our races take place on circuits that can change every year. But with AI we can combine information like the cars’ GPS and other data that is collected to combine through Gemini, Google’s AI and do it quickly,” says Dan Cherowbrier, Formula E CTIO.
To mark the new phase, a new “Strategy Agent”, created with Google Gemini, will be integrated into the live broadcasts, providing personalized data, predictions and explanations as the races unfold.
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Legacy and future
Formula E is the FIA’s first all-electric world championship and the only sport with a certified net-zero emissions plan. Created in 2014, the sport is still far from bringing together the number of fans from other categories, such as Formula 1. But the fact that it is new also has its advantages.
“There is one of the highest ratios of female to male fans of racing sports. The numbers are very similar. That’s partly because we don’t have a heritage that other sports have. While some of that heritage is very beautiful, some of it is not very inclusive,” says Cherowbrier.
For the executive, Formula E has been, from the beginning, a democratic sport and this comes with a gender balance. “Also, in terms of class, racing sports are traditionally very elitist. We try to avoid this by making the sport more accessible,” he says.
