“Part of its function will be operations, collecting data and also siphoning through it. But another big aspect is understanding it, doing the research and understanding this data, and eventually our aim is to have part of the AI team based in Limerick to leverage all the understanding that we have, especially given the strong DNA in rugby and football in Limerick – it makes sense that we have some aspects of it there.
“Sports is a very powerful vehicle to understand abstract things. What we are particularly good at in STATS is AI and in particular machine learning, and what we are particularly after are top developers who have an understanding and a passion for sport but also a passion for technology.
“We are really looking forward to people with that skillset because sports is one of those rare areas where people really like it and [are] passionate about it but there’s a very strong technical element to it. I like to think of sports data as one of the most challenging and interesting areas in machine learning,” said Lucey.
