The cloud and artificial intelligence have the power to change the world of sports, and few technology providers have done a better job of executing on this than Amazon Web Services Inc.

The company has partnerships with the NFL, Bundesliga, PGA TOUR, F1 and many more. With each organization, AWS works closely with them to deliver several fan, league and team facing innovations.

This week, AWS added another organization to its roster when it announced the DP World Tour, formerly the European Tour, is teaming with it to change how fans experience and watch professional golf. As the official cloud provider, AWS will supply the technology behind the DP World Tour’s media production, tournament operations and sustainability platforms.

The tour is tapping into AWS’ AI and streaming tools to make golf more connected and easier to follow. One of these tools is AWS Media Services that will stream live and on-demand video, giving fans fast-round compilations of individual players. With generative AI as the overarching technology, fans will have a richer viewing experience across TV, social media and the web. For example, they will get real-time data insights, instant shot analysis and commentary in multiple languages.

The DP World Tour is highly diverse with 114 players representing 41 countries. The 2025 Tour schedule features 42 tournaments in 25 countries. Because of this breadth of global talent, many fans will tune in to an event to follow players from the home country, which could be as little as a single competitor. Historically, if that player is not near the top of the leaderboard, there would be very little information provided. This changes with the infusion of AI.

The tour is rolling out a new AI-powered Media Asset Management system to organize its vast library of video and digital content. MAM automatically tags metadata, creating an intelligent, searchable archive that can instantly identify players, shots and important moments. Over time, this will facilitate more personalized digital experiences for fans, such as tailored content featuring favorite players.

AWS is also developing a second-generation version of the tour’s Virtual Twin, which is a digital replica of each golf course. It draws on more than a million data points to give fans a complete view of what’s happening on every hole. Fans will be able to follow the action, whether they’re watching a screen at the venue or using their phones.

Though much of the focus is on improving the fan experience, there is a lot happening behind the scenes. Amazon Bedrock and Quick Suite will power a new intelligence platform that streamlines how tournaments are managed. The tour’s operational teams will have one platform that pulls in live data from around the golf course, so they can make informed decisions about moving staff, restocking concessions and reducing queue lengths.

The DP World Tour and AWS are approaching this with sustainability in mind, using machine learning to track and reduce the environmental impact of every tournament. AWS will power Green Drive Live, a data platform that tracks energy use, emissions, waste, water and logistics. The machine learning component will help simulate different operational scenarios before each event. The tour will share these sustainability metrics with fans on a live dashboard across venue screens and in its mobile app.

These developments are part of the tour’s vision of a tournament-as-a-service model, which is an intelligent golf course that provides a consistent, data-rich experience for players, partners, media, and fans. Starting in 2026, the tour expects to have its applications and data integrated into AWS, bringing tournament-as-a-service from concept to practice at real events.

The Ryder Cup has served as a testing ground for the kind of AI-driven experiences the DP World Tour aims to provide. In a recent interview with ZK Research, Michael Cole, chief technology officer for the PGA European Tour and Ryder Cup Europe, described how the Ryder Cup used to be a logistical challenge with staff and systems operating manually. But AI has changed all that.

“We’ve been able to implement AI enablement to help drive efficiency and additional insights, which we wouldn’t be getting before,” said Cole. “One example would be through AI operations and using the technology to spot symptoms. That could be anything from intrusion detection to a change of temperature in our network operating systems. When that symptom appears, the technology is triggered, generating key insights.”

Regarding this partnership, Cole explained, “AWS’ technology can transform the relationship between fans and their favorite sports. Golf is a fascinating innovation platform for AWS because it has some unique challenges and opportunities. Fans can stand a matter of feet away from the world’s best players, but unlike other sports that have one field of play, a golf tournament has 18 fields of play spread across a vast site, which can make it challenging to follow how every player is performing. This partnership will give our fans real-time access to virtually every moment on the course, ensuring they never miss a beat wherever they are watching.”

He then added, “As Golf’s Global Tour, we also have a truly global fan base. This comes with obvious languages challenges and a great example of this partnership unlocking innovation will be the use of AWS’ AI services to deliver multilingual and instantaneous commentary translation for the first time.”

Another example is the fan experience. At the Ryder cup, Outcome IQ used AI to add real-time context around every shot. It takes into account how far the ball traveled off the tee, how far it is from the pin, and what the outcome is. The data is processed within seconds.

“This is virtually impossible to achieve through any kind of manual process or integration that could deliver the same insight and intelligence,” said Cole. “It’s a good example of how AI is benefiting fans by adding greater context to every shot that’s played.”

Elaine Chiasson, global golf principal at AWS, manages the relationship with the PGA Tour and now the DP World Tour and I wanted to get her take on the impact of the partnership. “At AWS, we thrive on collaborating with forward-thinking organizations that match our relentless pursuit of innovation,” she said. “By combining AWS’ AI capabilities — already demonstrated in golf through our work with the PGA Tour — with the DP World Tour’s rich data environment, we’re creating an innovation engine that will transform how golf is experienced. What excites me the most about this partnership is that it will impact virtually every aspect of golf, from enhancing the fan experience, to supercharging tournament operations with agentic AI to fast-tracking sustainability goals. The result will be an experience that brings fans closer to the game they love while setting new standards for how global sports operate.”

Many industry luminaries have stated something to the effect that in the AI era, data is the fuel that powers innovation. Sports leagues such as the DP World Tour have massive amounts of data than can be analyzed using AI to deliver insights to anyone involved with the game. Coaches can teach better, players have more data to make the right decisions, and fans have personalized content to enhance their viewing experience.

Zeus Kerravala is a principal analyst at ZK Research, a division of Kerravala Consulting. He wrote this article for SiliconANGLE.

Photo: AWS