McLaren has announced a multi-year partnership with global technology company NTT, meaning the firm will be an official partner of the McLaren Mastercard F1 team from the 2027 season onwards. The agreement represents a significant step in F1’s growing relationship with artificial intelligence, with the British outfit looking to establish itself as the most ‘AI-fluent’ team on the grid.

“We have a long-standing relationship with NTT and are excited to welcome them as an official partner of the McLaren Mastercard F1 team to build on the success we’ve had to date,” said McLaren CEO Zak Brown on the partnership. He added that AI has enormous potential across the sport and NTT will help them adopt new tech responsibly.

A central element of the partnership will be the development of responsible AI adoption, with NTT providing expertise in AI security governance. It will also help McLaren establish frameworks to manage the risks that come with the technology.

F1 is widely known as a sport where teams operate with an enormous volume of technical information and sophisticated data systems. Thus, NTT will ensure that artificial intelligence is deployed securely and responsibly.

While the announcement has not specified any on-track implications, the collaboration aims to support the Woking-based outfit’s wider sporting and business operations.

Moreover, the agreement builds on a pre-existing relationship between the two companies, with the Japanese tech giants having previously worked with the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team.

NTT has also been the title sponsor of the IndyCar series since 2019, meaning a venture into F1 isn’t a new association for the tech company. Rather, it is an expansion of its roots into the motorsport world.

The papaya-orange team’s relationship with tech stretches back decades, with the team first deploying telemetry data through its IndyCar program in 1975. 14 different parameters would be collected and downloaded for engineers to analyze after the race, serving as the basis of the telemetry data that is now in use across F1.

Today, the team’s tech infrastructure connects its HQ in Woking with engineers across the globe, with the team processing roughly 1.5 terabytes of data during a typical Grand Prix weekend. With such large numbers at play, McLaren’s other tech partnership comes into play, and they chose Dell for this.

The team also works in close contact with Google Cloud to analyze the race data, visualize performance information, and develop generative AI applications. Meanwhile, Dell helps with connecting simulation work at the factory with decisions made at the track.

McLaren’s legacy of being one of the most innovative teams on the F1 grid was established long before modern-day tech became an integral part of the sport. The most significant example of the philosophy came in 1981, when the team introduced the MP4/1. It became the first F1 car in history to feature a complete carbon-fiber composite monocoque.

Designed by John Barnard, the chassis offered an exceptional combo of strength, stiffness, and reduced weight, which would later become a fundamental law all F1 teams would follow for car design.

The same year, John Watson would walk away from a potentially life-threatening crash in Monza, highlighting the safety benefits of the new technology.

The willingness to challenge the norm of F1 through subsequent generations of cars would help the likes of Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, and Mika Hakkinen rack up several drivers’ titles, while also earning the team the multiple constructors’ championships.

Decades later, McLaren has maintained technical development as a central part of its identity, winning consecutive constructors’ championships in 2024 and 2025.

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