Lenovo, el cerebro digital que controlará Madring

Madrid-based Lenovo is the digital brain that will control the Madring circuit, a semi-urban track that brings back the excitement of Formula 1 to the capital. This challenging track, with its unknown layout, presents a technological challenge to drivers and teams, who must adapt to the unfamiliar course. Lenovo is the official partner of the World Championship and supplies the technology that makes it possible.

Unlike other sports, Formula 1 excels at combining technical components with human expertise. Beyond the innovations in cars and team garages, the Madring circuit will host an unprecedented deployment of laptops, desktops, monitors, tablets, and smartphones. These devices will serve the more than 600 engineers and staff working on the track, whose equipment must remain functional despite harsh conditions, including impacts, high vibrations, and extreme temperatures.

They will also be tasked with performing high-priority tasks, such as CAD design for graphics creation and video editing.

During each Grand Prix, around 650 terabytes of data are transferred between the circuit and the operations center, enabling the creation of engaging and personalized content for fans in 180 countries. This massive data generation will allow spectators to follow the race alongside nearly 100,000 privileged individuals who attend each Grand Prix.

For this purpose, 470 devices will be deployed across the circuit, including cameras, timing system sensors, onboard image receivers, and signaling lights. Each car will be equipped with up to nine cameras, including a 360-degree camera to generate additional content. To ensure viable transmission, Lenovo's Technical Event Center is essential – the world's largest and most complex portable installation, occupying a 25 by 15-meter surface and hosting 750 devices running over 40 custom software systems.

Each Grand Prix processes between 350,000 and 400,000 timing transponder records, generates 750 to 800 pages of official electronic documents, and produces approximately 300 to 400 GB of data per event. Lenovo's virtualization platform provides the necessary computing power for these operations. Much of this information will be moved to the Media and Technology Center, a production facility in Biggin Hill, UK, after a duplicate data cleanup phase in Madrid.

To minimize the heat generated by data analysis servers, Lenovo has implemented Neptuno Liquid Cooling technology, which uses hot water instead of air for improved efficiency.