Powering Innovation to Prepare for a Thrilling 2024 MotoGP World Championship - Lenovo
HONG KONG - Another MotoGP season is about to start, and the Ducati Lenovo Team is getting ready to face the competition. At Ducati Corse’s “Champions on the track” event in Madonna di Campiglio, Italy, Lenovo outlined the technology lineup that will help the team battle for the 2024 title, according to the official website of Lenovo.
“We are thrilled to kick off a new MotoGP Championship with Ducati Corse, building upon a successful 2023 season that showcased advancements in both technology and on-track performance, culminating with Francesco Bagnaia securing the MotoGP Riders’ World Championship for the second consecutive year. Undoubtedly, the battle will be hard, and we are excited to continue working with the team, using our innovative technology and services to raise the bar of high performance. The goal is not only to fight for the title but also to make technical advancements developed for the track, accessible for all, for example within Ducati’s portfolio of street bikes,” commented Luca Rossi, President of Lenovo’s Intelligent Devices Group.
As Ducati Corse’s Technology Partner since 2018, Lenovo provides the team with cutting-edge technology to transform data into actionable insights, run complex simulations and make strategic decisions in seconds.
In the technology-driven realm of MotoGP, the ability to understand data and use it for strategic decision-making is more crucial than ever. During every race weekend, Ducati Corse collects a total of 100GB of data from the eight Ducati Desmosedici GP bikes racing on track, each of which is equipped with about 50 sensors. With the goal to further improve on-track data analysis, the 2024 season will see the introduction of the Lenovo ThinkAgile hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) in the Ducati Lenovo Team garage. Lenovo’s powerful and flexible platform will help the Team to swiftly analyze vast quantities of data, while also fostering mobility and reliability, even in harsh environments, thanks to the Lenovo ThinkSystem SE350 edge servers.
This AI-optimized infrastructure will power Ducati’s deep learning and machine learning tools, used to improve the performance, reliability, and safety of Ducati’s racing bikes, as well as to analyze the data collected from the bike sensors and tracks, comparing them with riders’ sensations.
Data is not solely analyzed on track: Ducati Corse also leverages the Ducati Lenovo Remote Garage, which allows the engineers based in Borgo Panigale (Bologna) to receive data in real time from the garage, execute complex analysis and collaborate seamlessly with the team on the ground to optimize the bikes’ settings before they get back on track. To further enhance productivity and remote collaboration, the Ducati Lenovo Remote Garage room in the Ducati headquarters has been fully renovated with a wide range of Lenovo hardware, including monitors, workstations, and accessories.
The teams based at Ducati’s HQ are also in charge of aerodynamics and fluid dynamics simulations, which are powered by Lenovo’s High Performance Computing (HPC) technology, based on Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530, SR630 and SR650 servers. Lenovo’s HPC infrastructure will continue to play a pivotal role in innovating racing bikes and enhancing on-track performance, thanks to its built-in AI acceleration for edge workloads and optimization for faster data analytics.
Moreover, in order to face the constantly evolving needs of a fast-paced sport, Ducati Corse has signed a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) agreement with Lenovo, which makes additional power and services available on demand via a public cloud service to quickly adjust to unpredictable peak times, while streamlining operation keeping Lenovo as the sole point of contact.
In such a mission-critical environment, a wide range of Lenovo workstations, PCs, tablets, and monitors empower the people at every level of the organization, from the HQ to the track, improving operations, collaboration, and data analysis. Lenovo ThinkPad P1 mobile workstations follow the Team’s electronic engineers up to the starting grid, just a few minutes before the race, when the bikes’ setup is finalized.
But Lenovo’s technology will soon also cruise on the track: from the 2024 season, the Ducati Lenovo Team will introduce an innovative solution to execute on-track land surveys, powered by the Lenovo ThinkStation P360 Ultra workstation. Ducati Corse engineers have developed an autonomous-driving robot featuring a wide set of inertial and optical sensors, which will travel along the track at the beginning of the GP weekend, allowing the Team to get a digital copy of the circuit as close to reality as possible. Lenovo’s high-performing, compact workstation will enable Ducati Corse to collect and analyze a total of 200GB of data per circuit – allowing Ducati Corse to receive up to 2.6M data points every second (255 MB/s) from LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) sensors only.
“There is great excitement for the kickoff of the 2024 MotoGP season. We are eager to test ourselves again after an exceptional year. By our side once again is Lenovo, a key player that, in addition to being the Title Partner of the official team, is an essential technology partner with whom we have made significant progress, achieving important results on track. Ducati and Lenovo share similar philosophies that drive us to always aim higher and constantly set new and ambitious goals.
For years, we have been working together to win on and off the track, and we will continue to do so with the same determination, thanks also to the new opportunities offered by AR and VR technologies. Everything is ready to rev up the engines on March 10 in Qatar and cheer together again with all the Ducatisti #ForzaDucati!”, commented Claudio Domenicali, CEO of Ducati Motor Holding.
Innovation is a continuous journey, and the two organizations are constantly exploring, testing, and implementing new ideas and technologies with the overarching aim to win both on and off the track.
For the future, Ducati Corse is considering the opportunities offered by AR and VR technologies, as well as Lenovo’s services to help achieve its sustainability goals and get the flexibility needed to face the challenges of the ever-changing world of motorsports.
