Super Bowl prepares for potential AI cybersecurity threat

A view of Levi's Stadium ahead of Super Bowl LX between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, in Santa Clara. Calif., Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Before the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks face off at Super Bowl LX, Levi’s Stadium needed a tech upgrade package.

To equip the venue for Sunday’s Super Bowl, the National Football League and the San Francisco 49ers laid down miles of fiber optic cable, set up hundreds of wireless access points and raised cyber defenses to fend off possible incursions.

The effort to prepare the stadium began in earnest more than a year ago.

Ahead of the game, the NFL has deployed its own cybersecurity safety squad to ensure that it goes off without a hitch. As part of the preparations, the NFL set up a makeshift cyber command centre in the bowels of the stadium to monitor and intercept threats.

“So the threat actors will take an environment like this, just like a pickpocket,” NFL Senior Director of Cybersecurity George Griesler said.

This year, more than others, the cyber defense efforts are watching more closely for attacks that are powered by artificial intelligence, said Costa Kladianos, 49ers Executive Vice President, Head of Technology.

“Even up until last year, (AI) wasn’t as big of a threat as it is this year,” Kladianos said.

One of the most significant updates for Super Bowl LX is the Wi-Fi in the stadium to cope with the voluminous amount of data that the roughly 65,000 spectators will generate during the game. All the social media posts, livestreamed video and other content will take an enormous amount of upload bandwidth to cope with.

“We’re in Silicon Valley, so everyone’s got one, two, maybe three devices,” Cisco distinguished engineer Matt Swartz said to Reuters in an interview.

The 49ers’ tech staff expect spectators will upload more than 35 terabytes worth of data during the game, Kladianos said.

The idea is to make using the wireless network roughly the same as sitting in someone’s living room.

To aid in this effort, Cisco installed nearly 1,500 wireless routers that use the Wi-Fi 7 standard, which offers greater speed and connection reliability.

“It’s like adding a bunch of lanes to the highway during rush hour,” Swartz said.

New data centre

Santa Clara is a popular part of the region to construct data centres because of the relatively cheap energy available in the city.

The 49ers operate three data centres, one at the team’s practice facility and then two at the stadium itself. The most recently constructed was built to accommodate a US$200 million upgrade package for Levi’s Stadium completed last year, which included a massive 4K videoboard - the largest in the NFL - and a bevy of smaller panels around the stadium.

The new displays require the computing horsepower that sits inside the newly constructed data centre.

Reporting by Max A. Cherney in Santa Clara; Editing by Toby Davis, Reuters