the IT Systems at the Beijing Olympic Games will cost around $400 million

According to report, the IT and communications systems at the Beijing Olympic Games will cost around $400 million and will require the expertise of thousands of IT managers and engineers. Live testing has already started.

Hou Xinyi，deputy director of the technology department at the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games，said “To reduce risk, there will be a lot of tests before the games”. The IT systems for rowing and canoeing events that will be used for the Olympics were used last week at another event. The 2007 FISA World Rowing Junior Championships, which ran from Aug. 8 to 11, went off without a hitch. "All the IT systems worked smoothly," Hou Xinyi said.

Testing is key to the success of the IT systems. Each sport, from archery to basketball to sailing and weightlifting, will be allocated its own set of IT gear, and each of those systems will be tested between now and the start of the games.

Atos Origin SA was responsible for building the IT systems at the past few Olympic Games and is responsible for the design, deployment and operation of the IT systems in Beijing next year. Atos has said that work on the IT systems used for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy, started two and a half years before the event and that the systems underwent 100,000 hours of testing.