How Galacean Powers the Asian Games’ Digital Torchbearers with Web3D Front‑End Tech

For the first time in Asian Games history, a digital torchbearer program lets ordinary people join the torch relay, creating a network of nearly 100 million participants powered by Ant Group’s interactive technology and the open‑source Galacean engine.

The Open‑Source Technology Framework Behind the Asian Games Torchbearer – Galacean

Traditional digital human solutions rely on heavyweight game engines like Unity or Unreal, requiring extensive artistic work and resulting in static video outputs. Galacean provides a modern Web3D‑based platform that supports real‑time creation, sharing, and interaction of digital humans directly in browsers.

Built on physically‑based rendering, scripting, animation components, and a WebAssembly‑compiled PhysX engine, Galacean offers low‑code integration of animation sequencing, inverse kinematics, and physics, outputting assets as XR interactive scenes or front‑end components. This end‑to‑end workflow reduces communication overhead between artists and developers, opening digital‑human technology to non‑graphics developers.

How the Asian Games Digital Torchbearer Works

At the 18th D2 Terminal Technology Conference, Galacean’s front‑end lead Wang Heng and engine expert Zhu Xudong detailed the core capabilities and development challenges of the digital torchbearer, covering interactive scene exploration, facial customization, large‑scale asset management for over 100 million unique avatars, and full‑device 3D coverage.

They also demonstrated how the Galacean Editor streamlines 3D asset creation, editing, and maintenance, enabling rapid production and efficient scaling for massive public participation.

Beyond the technical showcase, Ant Group’s dedicated “Ant Asian Games Office” of nearly a thousand staff members contributed digital services and payment solutions to support five historic firsts for the Hangzhou Asian Games, with the digital torchbearer being a world‑first initiative.