How Cloud Networking Helped Aston Martin F1 In Its Best Season To Date

Thank you for reading my latest article How Cloud Networking Helped Aston Martin F1 In Its Best Season To Date. Here at LinkedIn and at Forbes I regularly write about management and technology trends.

To read my future articles simply join my network by clicking 'Follow'. Also feel free to connect with me via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Podcast or YouTube.

Formula One is a tech-heavy sport, but fans probably don't often think about the networking technology underpinning the heroic successes and failures of every season.

Plenty has been written (by myself, among others) about the data-heavy nature of this form of racing. The typical car has over 300 sensors that collect and transmit one terabyte of numerical data during a race. If that much data was printed out, it would take up 80 million pages in a stack 8,000 meters high - almost the same height as Mount Everest.

All of this data, however, wouldn’t be going anywhere without the cutting-edge networking that holds it together and keeps it secure. In today’s motorsports, where every second counts, cloud and AI-augmented infrastructure is the backbone of the real-time analytics and split-second decision-making that teams rely on.

This was why – as a big F1 fan – I was excited to get the chance to speak to Jeff Aaron, VP of Enterprise Marketing at Juniper Networks. Juniper has been a crucial partner for the Aston Martin F1 team just as it celebrates its most successful season so far, winning eight podium placings and finishing fifth in the Constructors’ Championship.

To explore the collaboration and understand why flawless, next-generation network experiences are critical to success in Formula One today, read on!

The Partnership

Juniper’s collaboration with Aston Martin F1 extends from its sleek new campus and factory at Silverstone to its simulators, wind tunnels, and adrenaline-heavy race day operations.

Juniper is known for advanced networking solutions built on cloud and AI, meaning it was able to offer a world of expertise to the team. With its help, Aston Martin has been able to build and deploy networking infrastructure capable of handling heavy data-processing requirements and incoming (often real-time) data.

The challenges of the sport mean there's a need for more than just high speeds, though. The infrastructure must be capable of hosting rapidly-deployed mini-networks serving diverse global locations.

Aaron tells me, “The Aston Martin use case is exactly right in that wheelhouse of leveraging cloud, leveraging AI. And really underscoring the mantra of what we’re all about.

“It’s everything from … how do you make sure all the employees on the campus are able to get the data they need quickly and reliably? … How do you make sure they can find things and have efficient operations in the factory? … To a brand-new wind tunnel and engineering resource with hundreds or thousands of sensors that need to give accurate data.”

The focus is on creating a seamless experience which doesn’t just connect devices but improves the way the team can work with data, make data-driven decisions, and ultimately win races.

Cloud, AI And Automated Networking In Formula One

In Formula One, every split-second decision could be the difference between a place on the podium and defeat. This means every team is competing not just on the track but across their entire operation to leverage every technology that could give them an advantage.

Today, that increasingly means AI and cloud services. Together, they let machines handle vast quantities of data from many sources and mine it for insights that would be difficult to spot with either the human eye or traditional data analytics.

Aaron tells me, "We wanted to do this over the last twenty or thirty years of networking, and until the advent of the cloud and AI, it just couldn't be done; you just did not have the ability to collect that mass amount of data. You did not have the algorithms to turn data into insight.”

This connectivity and intelligence have to extend to the networking infrastructure itself, too. This means proactive problem-solving and allocation of networking resources to where they are needed most, as well as streamlining of data flow across the organization. ?

Aston Martin relies on Juniper’s MIST AI microservices cloud platform, which lets it create unique network configurations needed for the ever-evolving demands of Formula One. It has been built to offer granular control and deep insight into the operations of a network and the information it carries, allowing the team to fine-tune in precise ways.

The convergence of advanced network technology and AI insights means the team is able to maintain a competitive edge, not just in racing performance but in the overall efficiency and effectiveness of everything they do.

Aaron says, "When people think of AI, they think of, you know, finding the next virus … or a thousand different applications like helping to grow better grapes.

“But when you’re actually applying AI to different domain expertise … it has a lot of value to networking – in the end, you need a network to be predictable, reliable and measurable.”

The Future

The integration of advanced networking, AI and cloud computing has propelled Aston Martin to its best season to date. But it’s just the beginning of the impact I expect to see it have on the world of motorsport.

Technologies are evolving with each season as teams gain a better understanding of how they can push boundaries of speed and efficiency.

Is AI hyped – of course it is – and we have to be careful of dangers like “AI washing”.

“You know, I flew to Vegas last week … and I think I saw 30 billboards with the word AI on – from everything from Zoom video conferences to God-knows what else. So obviously it’s a buzzword, it’s hot,” Aaron says.

However, like just about every other decision-maker in business I speak to, he’s convinced the impact will be real.

He tells me, “This, in my mind, just blows the doors off of anything we’ve seen in networking. Just like I think you could say they've seen in every other industry. It's a new world, and it's pretty exciting."

You can click here to watch my podcast with Jeff Aaron, VP of Enterprise Marketing, Juniper Networks, where we discuss more details of the work with Aston Martin and its implications for the future of motorsports. To learn more about AI-powered networks from Juniper Networks, click here: https://www.juniper.net/us/en/solutions/artificial-intelligence-for-it-operations-aiops.html?&utm_medium=influencer&utm_source=bernard

About Bernard Marr

Bernard Marr is a world-renowned futurist, influencer and thought leader in the fields of business and technology, with a passion for using technology for the good of humanity. He is a best-selling author of over 20 books, writes a regular column for Forbes and advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organisations.

He has a combined following of 4 million people across his social media channels and newsletters and was ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 business influencers in the world. Bernard’s latest book is ‘Generative AI in Practice’.