The United States Tennis Association and IBM renewed their technology partnership for five years on October 28, keeping IBM as the US Open’s official AI and cloud partner through 2031. The agreement follows a record year for the tournament’s digital platforms, which generated more than 270 million engagements across its website and app during the 2026 event, according to the companies.

The extension covers the systems behind live match information, interactive analysis and personalized fan experiences. The headline engagement figure measures actions across those platforms, not 270 million unique people. IBM and the USTA have worked together since the early 1990s, launching USOpen.org in 1995 and the tournament’s mobile app in 2009. The companies’ announcement did not disclose the contract’s financial terms.

How the tournament uses AI

At this year’s tournament, the partners introduced Serve Quality, which analyzes a player’s delivery using ball, racquet and body-position data. IBM says its system measures 21 tracking points 50 times per second, producing about 1.2 billion data points over the event. The results help explain aspects of serve mechanics rather than simply showing speed. BitcoinVersus.Tech previously explored the biomechanics behind IBM’s Serve Quality system.

IBM Technology explains how AI agents and APIs turn real-time US Open serve data into usable information. Video published September 2026.

The other tools include Match Chat, a conversational assistant that answers tennis questions, and Key Moments, which adds explanations to the tournament’s point-by-point Likelihood to Win estimates. Those predictions are model outputs, not guarantees of match results.

The renewal also reflects a growing effort to bring performance analysis and real-time data to wider sports audiences. Separate NBA experiments with connected equipment show how leagues are testing sensing and communication technology, although the US Open’s systems are designed primarily for digital engagement.

IBM Technology’s November 2025 explainer provides background on how AI agents and language models support tennis match insights.

IBM says its infrastructure also helps the USTA’s editorial team manage live coverage. In a technical overview published in August, the company described combining specialized data processing with generative AI to deliver readable summaries and answers.

The 2026 tournament also drew more than 1.2 million attendees, the USTA reported. The partners have not specified which new AI capabilities will launch in 2027. The next test is whether the renewed agreement produces useful features that fans can trust, beyond high engagement totals.

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