From predictive analytics to personalized fan experiences, data and AI are powering the next generation of motorsport, says Rohit Agnihotri, principal technologist at Infosys, and Dan Cherowbrier, CTIO of Formula E. When the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship launched its first race through Beijing's Olympic Park in 2014, the idea of all-electric motorsport still bordered on experimental. Batteries couldn't yet last a full race, and drivers had to switch cars mid-competition. Just over a decade later, Formula E has evolved into a global entertainment brand broadcast in 150 countries, driving both technological innovation and cultural change in sport. Gen4, that's to come next year, says Dan Cherowbrier, Formula E's chief technology and information officer. You will see a really quite impressive car that starts us to question whether EV is there. Formula E's digital transformation, powered by its partnership with Infosys, is redefining what it means to be a fan. "It's a movement to make motor sport accessible and exciting for the new generation," says principal technologist at Infosys, Rohit Agnihotri. From real-time leaderboards and predictive tools to personalized storylines that adapt to what individual fans care most about--whether it's a driver rivalry or battery performance--Formula E and Infosys are using AI-powered platforms to create fan experiences as dynamic as the races themselves. Technology is not just about meeting expectations; it's elevating the entire fan experience and making the sport more inclusive, says Agnihotri. AI is also transforming how the organization itself operates. Historically, we would be going around the company, banging on everyone's doors and dragging them towards technology, making them use systems, making them move things to the cloud, Cherowbrier notes.

Formula E Racing, like its Formula 1 counterpart, relies on speed and strategy to win. But how do you crunch through the reams of data that you can get from an electric race car and analyze it in a way that would help your driver and your racing team beat the competition? And that's why he has partnered with Sanjay Srivastava, Chief Digital Officer of Genpact, to leverage data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to build a multi-layer platform that turns a mountain of data into actionable analysis. Formula E racing produces different types of data across many fronts. There's a set of telemetry data from the cars, a stream of large data sets that cars produce while they are on the road, and data from competing drivers and their vehicles. Then there's data gleaned from weather, satellite, traffic, and road patterns. All that needs a data analytics system that can interpolate the information as it comes in from all these sources and analyze it in real-time in a way that the driver and the racing team can absorb and act upon instantaneously. But, as Sylvain points out, that's easier said than done, especially since a Formula E race happens in just one day, and every second counts. As Sylvain and Sanjay explain, it starts with knowing how to structure the incoming information so that the driver and engineers can act upon it quickly. That means setting up the correct algorithms, developing an analytical infrastructure that--with the help of AI--integrates all of the different types of data, and synchronizing it to give the driver and engineers the whole picture and predict the likeliest outcomes in any given scenario in order to make the right decisions during the race. That also means creating a user interface for the data that's both comprehensive and instantly comprehensible to the driver. The work that Sylvain and Sanjay are doing has notable implications for business that goes beyond racing. The technologies they are developing will trickle down to make electric cars and sustainable energy better. The analytics tools they are creating can potentially be utilized by other companies to make better sense of data coming from multiple sources in order to make well-informed business and digital transformation decisions and do so quickly, and to manage their resources more efficiently. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Michael Krigsman: Formula E Racing involves cars, speed, data, and advanced technologies such as AI and machine learning.

Winning a Formula E race comes down to a few things. First, there's the car -- how well it's made, how fast it drives, how easily it handles. Then there's the talent of the driver, and the speed in which that driver can react to blisteringly fast-paced situations. There's the skill level of a team's crew, the enthusiasm and dedication of its fan base, and the amount of luck that is on its side the day of the race. Lift up the hood on each one of those factors and you'll discover a shared element -- underneath all the possible external factors, what may ultimately decide the winner of a race is data, and how well one team is able to process and distill that data and use it to make strategic decisions and boost its Formula E technology.

In 2014, ABB FIA Formula E became the world's first fully-electric, international, single-seater racing championship. It was as groundbreaking for the world of motorsport as the inception of car-to-pit telemetry in the 1980s. It's sitting in the Envision Virgin Racing garage, where Envision Virgin Racing, with professional services firm Genpact, is working to embed artificial intelligence (AI) into the team-. This partnership will turn data into insight, and transform the team's decision-making at high speed. It's no surprise then, that today's teams are inundated with data on everything from pre-race track conditions to detailed telemetry from sensors monitoring every major component and system in the car.

Roborace has long talked of completely driverless cars hitting the track when its first season gets underway, but the company has had a change of heart. CEO (and Formula E winner) Lucas di Grassi has revealed to Motorsport.com that Roborace's "Season Alpha" will use a new DevBot 2.0 car with space for a human driver. The organic crews will take the wheel for part of the race, with the autonomous component taking control for the rest. The picture of a driver hopping out of the car "better exemplifies" the differences between piloted and autonomous driving, di Grassi said. He also argued that racing needs a "human component."

A quick look through the Cars Technica back catalog (the carchive, perhaps?) shows that autonomous driving technology and racing technology are both topics we return to quite often. But it has been a while since we covered their intersection--specifically, what's been going on at Roborace. The series first broke cover at the end of 2015 and then wowed everybody with the Robocar a few months later. It looks outrageous, made possible because it does not need to protect a human driver or generate meaningful downforce, two factors that overwhelmingly influence most race car designs. Initially, the idea was for a driverless support series for Formula E. Roborace would supply teams with identical Robocars, and the teams would try to program a better racing AI.

Ever since Roborace unveiled plans for driverless track cars, there's been a lingering question: can its technology outpace a human? The answer is a solid "no..." for now. The company used the recent Formula E race in Rome to pit its DevBot prototype car against pro drifter Ryan Tuerck, and the fleshy driver was clearly the frontrunner with a roughly 26-second lead -- you can see him claiming victory in the video below. That's still in the ballpark of what you'd expect from humans, but they wouldn't be lining up sponsorships after that kind of performance. You might not want to be too confident about humanity's motorsport prowess.

Roborace, the firm hoping to kick-start the future of driverless racing, has released incredible footage taken inside one of its self-driving vehicles while in action. The cockpit footage was taken during the first full-speed, self-driven lap of the Formula E track in Berlin earlier this month. The car is seen hitting speeds of 124mph (200 km/h), and avoids colliding with the track walls. The Robocar weighs almost 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lbs), and measures 4.8 metres long (15.7 ft) and two metres wide (6.5 ft). Four motors, each with 300kW of power and a 540kW battery, allow the car to reach dizzying speeds of over 320kph (200mph).

Roborace, the firm hoping to kick-start the future of driverless racing, has demonstrated its electric, 200-mile-per-hour (320km/h) self-driving car on a public track for the first time. The futuristic vehicle completed a lap of the Paris ePrix circuit ahead of the city's 2017 Formula E race, which took place on Saturday. The demonstration saw the car complete 14 turns of the almost 2 kilometre (1.2 mile) track while driven entirely by AI and sensors. The Robocar weighs almost 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lbs), and measures 4.8 metres long (15.7 ft) and two metres wide (6.5 ft). Four motors, each with 300kW of power and a 540kW battery, allow the car to reach dizzying speeds of over 320kph (200mph).

Roborace, the motorsport championship series of the future, has finally lifted the veil off of its electric driverless racing car – Robocar. With this model, the series is one step closer to its goal of holding the first global championship for driverless cars, on the same tracks as the FIA Formula E Championship. The car weighs 975 Kgs, is five meters in length and two meters in width. Each wheel in the Robocar is equipped with a 300kW motor, making it a total of four such motors, which can take the car to speeds of up to 320 kilometers per hour.