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SIMON BROWN: I’m chatting with Haim Israel. He is head of global thematic investing research at the Bank of America. Haim, I appreciate the time. The 2026 Fifa World Cup – Soccer World Cup, as we would call it here in South Africa – is happening.
It has been described as the first ‘AI World Cup’. I get the point. Back in the 2022 World Cup ChatGPT hadn’t even come out yet. AI really is going to be a huge part of this tournament.
HAIM ISRAEL: Yes it is, as you rightly said. During Qatar we just had a ChatGPT moment and we did not understand how much the world is going to change. AI is going to be a big part of each and every game, each and every part of this tournament – and it’s going to be a showcase about how AI and technology are eating the world, really.
It starts from the amount of data that we’re going to create in this tournament for almost 30 days, give or take. We are going to generate two exabytes of data. Just as a reference, two exabytes is roughly 45 billion HD movies – that, give or take, is what we are talking about in those 30 days.
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Just the final game itself, those 90 minutes, is going to take 7% of the world internet traffic. Just those 90 minutes. That’s nothing we’ve ever, ever seen in the past.
And AI, as I said, is going to be a big part of it because we are talking about six billion people going to watch the game, 75% of the world population. And for the first time AI will allow them not just to watch the game, but to participate in real time, to engage in real time.
Many tools like digital twins, like avatars, even the metaverse – social media that can allow you to impact change, see stuff in real time – are things that we’ve never, ever seen in the past. So don’t say six billion spectators, say for the first time six billion participants.
SIMON BROWN: I like that. It is participants because I thought AI – the teams are going to use it. Of course they are. They’re going to use it to research the competition, and the team they’re playing next, et cetera. That’s obviously going to be a big part of it.
Teams have always done that. AI is a tool which makes that easier and quicker for them, but it actually goes into the fans as well, onto the stadiums, security, the hospitality. Every corner of the tournament is going to have some AI in it.
HAIM ISRAEL: And you’re right. You said it. First of all, it’s a case study about technology. Think about all this massive data creation, as you rightly pointed out – from the teams that can analyse millions of data points in real time, and can know the advantage of the big teams versus the small teams, to the spectators, to security, to data centres, to everything going to be allowed.
And one other thing; everything has to be with zero latency.
All this case study about AI and technology, which has never, ever happened in the past, matches that we’ve never, ever seen in the past – everything has to be in zero latency.
So we are talking about a case study of world infrastructure. We are talking about something that is going to be so much bigger than just the technology itself.
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SIMON BROWN: Yes. And I imagine this is something that the AI companies are going to learn from just because of that massive use. You mentioned six billion people. That is three-quarters of the planet who are going to be watching, if not one, in some cases many, in some cases all 104 games. There is nothing that I can imagine comes even close to that in terms of viewership.
HAIM ISRAEL: Yes, you are right. Let’s take the other two big events that the world is talking about – Super Bowl and the Olympics. The World Cup this time around is going to be the Super Bowl plus the Olympics – times 40.
This is the magnitude, 75% of the population watching it. Just the fans themselves it’s said is going to take 7% of the world internet; and 20% of the world population will watch it in real time, something that has never happened in the past in those 90 minutes.
And just to give you another illustration of how big this event is going to be, roughly six million people are going to be travelling with airlines to see the games internally and externally, outside of the US and Mexico and Canada, and during the games.
If I add all the air miles of all of them together, we are getting to the distance of between Earth and the edge of the solar system, times three. This is how big this is going to be.
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SIMON BROWN: I love this. There’s an economic impact. It’s going to contribute to GDP – for Mexico, Canada, the US. The US maybe less because of the size of the economy, but it’s going to be jobs, it’s going to be tourism. It is so much more than just the actual game itself.
There is a huge impact. Hotels, Airbnbs – and beyond just the host countries as well. It is going to be pubs and bars in South Africa that are going to be full of cheering fans.
HAIM ISRAEL: Yes they are. So it goes between some of the more usual suspects, as you said – between hospitality, airlines, hotels, food and so on. Sport is a luxury to consumers and everything, but it’s also going to be about massive infrastructure buildout, internet, telecommunication infrastructure, electricity and so on.
We’re going to see massive investment around this event. And of course, the impact goes on much longer.
We’ve calculated and spoken about close to one million jobs that are going to be created on the back of this World Cup – very close to that, 850 000. Roughly one third is going to be in the US. But we are talking about a worldwide phenomenon here, which is going to contribute. And its economic impact is going to go way beyond.
SIMON BROWN: I get that. I hadn’t actually thought of that. For example, people are going to be buying replicas of the jerseys for their country teams. Those jerseys are going to be made in factories the world over.
This might be a factory in Bangladesh, it might be Vietnam, it might be one here in South Africa, which is suddenly going to get an increase in orders.
HAIM ISRAEL: Yes it is. And that’s what I said. We’re live in a global world. We can talk about globalism, yes, no, and what’s the impact? But the bottom line is still that we live in a world of globalisation. And when you have an impact of a product, it goes way beyond just the country that is hosting it.
If, for example, we speak about the technological side, think about all the data centres and all the infrastructure around it.
A lot of these companies are international companies with a contract. They’re employing people all over the world.
They’ve said they’re getting a lot of data to come up with new products and new technology on the back of it, which is going to spread so much wider than in just those three countries.
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SIMON BROWN: So here’s the big question. We’re starting the tournament. There are 104 games to go till we get to the final. You are head of global thematic investing and research at the Bank of America. Have you done the research on who is going to come out victorious at the end of the tournament?
HAIM ISRAEL: Yes. We’ve done two things. We’ve done a survey across the entire research department and asked this question, but we backed it up as well with AI, and we came up with a very long and detailed prompt about trying to analyse all the different data points and look at it from less of an emotional point of view, let’s call it ‘much more professional’.
So the research department people were saying that France is going to win, and Japan is going to be the surprise of the tournament.
When we asked AI, the surprise of the tournament was still Japan, but the winner was actually Spain. So if we are relying on those two surveys and trying to detach emotions a little bit, those are probably the winners here.
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SIMON BROWN: Okay. France-Spain the final, perhaps. That’ll be a great final. Japan the surprise. Unfortunately no Bafana Bafana. But we’re just trying to get out of the group stages. We’ll be more than happy with that.
We’ll leave it there. Haim Israel, head of global thematic investing research at Bank of America. appreciate the time.
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