University of Texas opens Bevo Lab with Google Cloud and Dell for AI sports research

The new facility will begin with football analytics, giving up to 40 student researchers hands-on AI experience in its first year before scaling to 200 annually

The Texas Longhorns mascot at a University of Texas football game. The university has launched Bevo Lab with Google Cloud, Dell Technologies and SHI International to combine AI-powered sports analytics with hands-on student research. Image credit: Google Cloud / Texas Athletics.

The University of Texas at Austin has launched Bevo Lab, a sports analytics and artificial intelligence research initiative bringing together university students, athletics staff and technology companies to develop AI applications for collegiate sports.

The collaboration involves Texas Athletics and the Business of Sports Institute at the McCombs School of Business, with Dell Technologies, Google Cloud and SHI International providing infrastructure, AI tools and technical expertise.

The lab will initially focus on football before extending its work across the university's 21 varsity sports, which involve more than 500 student-athletes. Alongside developing tools for coaches and athletic staff, the initiative will give students practical experience in data science, machine learning and AI development.

Bevo Lab will be led by Dr. Kirk Goldsberry, Executive Director of the Business of Sports Institute and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Management at McCombs, whose previous roles include Vice President of Strategic Research for the San Antonio Spurs.

The university expects up to 40 students to participate in its first year, with plans to increase that number to 200 annually.

Football analytics provides the first test for AI development

Bevo Lab will use a centralized data platform, known as Bevo Lakehouse, to bring together information previously held across separate athletics systems.

The platform will combine data including game footage and wearable technology records, giving student researchers and university staff access to information for developing AI models and analytical tools.

Initial projects will concentrate on football, with applications designed to support scouting, game preparation, roster evaluation and player development.

One system already developed through earlier collaboration, Football Scouting Intelligence, automates the compilation of opponent data and video reports that coaches previously assembled manually.

Google Cloud says the system is saving University of Texas football coaches more than 15 hours each week in game preparation. The figure is reported by the technology partner rather than supported by separately published evaluation data.

Further development will include predictive models for game strategy, recruitment and player performance, alongside applications that allow coaches, athletes and athletics executives to access information through interfaces tailored to their responsibilities.

The work builds on sports analytics projects Goldsberry has developed with students since joining the university in 2018.

Students to work directly with Google engineering teams

The initiative also creates a practical research environment for students studying subjects including computer science, statistics, business and biology.

In an interview published by Google Cloud, Goldsberry explains the intention to connect university research with the operational challenges faced by athletics teams: “We’re creating this giant sandbox where our students can collaborate and build AI models and resources and apps for our sports programs.”

Students accepted into the lab are expected to work between 10 and 20 hours per week, contributing to research and software development projects across disciplines.

Through a Google Public Sector ambassador program, participating students will also have opportunities to work directly with Google engineering teams while developing applications for university athletics.

Google Cloud will serve as the lab's Official Cloud Provider and Enterprise AI Provider, supplying cloud infrastructure and access to Gemini AI technology.

Google Public Sector's engineering teams will collaborate with students and coaches to prototype applications and provide technical guidance.

Matt Renner, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Google Cloud, says: “By putting our advanced data analytics platforms and Gemini models into the hands of UT students, coaches, and researchers, we are building a secure foundation for sports intelligence that will define the future of the industry.”

Dell and SHI provide infrastructure and integration

Dell Technologies is the founding sponsor and Official Technology Infrastructure Sponsor, responsible for supplying the AI-ready infrastructure that will underpin the lab.

SHI International will act as strategic technology advisor and solutions integrator, bringing together the different computing, cloud, data and security technologies into a unified environment.

The university also plans to investigate applications involving athlete fitness, performance and recovery, where the management of sensitive personal and medical information will require particular attention.

Goldsberry has identified the sensitivity of athlete medical data as an important consideration in developing these systems, with Google Cloud expected to contribute expertise in managing those datasets.

The lab's research will combine projects specific to individual sports with applications that could be adapted across different teams.

Longhorn Sports Properties, a division of Learfield, helped develop the initiative and secure its founding corporate sponsors.

Bevo Lab will be based in Innovation Tower, adjacent to the University of Texas campus in Austin's Innovation District.

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