President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach spoke highly of the role that the Beijing Winter Olympics will play in promoting digitalization to engage more people digitally on Feb. 6, the third day of the Games.

Speaking in a cloud interview with journalists at the 2022 Beijing Media Center, Bach said that over the next two weeks, hundreds of millions of winter sports fans in China and around the world will follow the athletes and their amazing performances, and most will follow the Games digitally.

"Already before the pandemic, digitalization was changing the Olympic Games in profound ways. Beijing 2022 will accelerate and deepen this trend of engaging more people, more digitally than ever before," Bach said.

The interview with Bach, who is in the closed-loop management system of the Games, was conducted over Alibaba's "Cloud ME" platform, powered by real-time communication and transmission technologies that ensure low latency and high concurrency.

Presenting images via 4K high-definition screens, the platform facilitates life-sized, true-to-life interactions and helps defy distances amid the backdrop of COVID-19.