The AWS DeepRacer League is the world’s first open autonomous racing league powered by machine learning (ML). AWS DeepRacer brings together builders from all over the world to form a community that gets hands-on and learns ML through friendly autonomous racing competitions. As we celebrate the achievements of over 560,000 participants from over 150 countries who have honed their skills through the AWS DeepRacer League over the past six years, we are also preparing to close this chapter with a final season that will serve as both a victory lap and a launch pad for the next step in the world of AWS DeepRacer.
AWS DeepRacer Legacy
The AWS DeepRacer community is at the heart of the league, with enthusiasts and league legends facilitating learning for a global network of AWS DeepRacer participants at every stage of ML. When we launched AWS DeepRacer in 2018, we set out to make the concept of training ML models more accessible.
By removing the typical hurdles associated with preparing for training and evaluating ML models, AWS DeepRacer provides a fun way for builders to focus on fundamental training, evaluation, and model performance concepts, even with no prior experience.
The impact of racing in the league goes far beyond podiums and prizes, with many participants using the AWS DeepRacer experience and community support to further their careers.
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“Working on the AWS DeepRacer challenges has not only honed my technical skills, but it has also opened doors to new roles where innovation and agility are key. Every lap around the track brings me one step closer to mastering the tools that drive modern solutions and prepare us for the future of technology.”
– AWS DeepRacer League veteran Daryl Jezierski, Principal Site Reliability Engineer at The Walt Disney Company.
Each year, hundreds of AWS customers, including JPMorgan, Chase, Vodafone, and Eviden, host AWS DeepRacer events to advance their employees’ foundational ML skills through collaborative gaming education.
Migrating to AWS Solutions
Although the AWS DeepRacer League will no longer be a globally hosted AWS competition in 2025, you will continue to have access to AWS DeepRacer services for training, evaluation, and community racing in the AWS Management Console until December 2025.
Starting in early 2025, AWS DeepRacer source code will also be available as an AWS Solution, a ready-made deployment of the underlying AWS services, code, and configuration that make up the AWS DeepRacer service. In the short term, this gives organizations the option to choose the AWS DeepRacer experience that best suits their needs. The new Solution retains all of the existing AWS DeepRacer console capabilities for training reinforcement learning models using Amazon SageMaker and evaluating models in simulated 3D environments, as well as race management controls such as creating, hosting, and managing global races. The new AWS Solution provides even more flexibility, enabling organizations to deliver ML education at scale to their employees while choosing the best optimization of cost and convenience to meet their needs.
AWS DeepRacer continues to be the fastest way to get started with the foundations of ML training, with tens of thousands of builders using the AWS DeepRacer program within their organizations in 2024 alone. In addition to customers using AWS DeepRacer to kickstart their ML transformation journeys, many customers have told us that their teams are looking to apply new skills to solve real business problems with artificial intelligence (AI).
To help them with their next steps, we are launching four new AWS DeepRacer workshops focused on generative AI at AWS re:Invent 2024. These 200- and 300-level hands-on sessions will bridge foundational concepts of ML with AWS DeepRacer and fundamental model training and fine-tuning techniques with AWS services such as SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock to common industry use cases. Additionally, all four workshops will be immediately available with managed AWS DeepRacer solutions starting in 2025.
The road to re:Invent
As the final AWS DeepRacer League races to a thrilling conclusion, all eyes are on the final heat of the season. In the 2024 league, the heats will span two monthly races, with the top racer from each of the six global regions earning a trip to the championship at re:Invent based on their cumulative performance in both races. In September, the fourth and final heat will begin, the only remaining path for league hopefuls to win an all-expenses-paid trip to compete for this year’s record-breaking championship prize of $50,000. If you didn’t earn a spot during the regular season, you still have one more chance to get through by racing in person in the Last Chance Qualifier Round in Las Vegas on December 2nd. The stakes have never been higher for those skilled enough to qualify for this year’s championship. Thirty-two racers will compete for the title of 2024 AWS DeepRacer Champion and a whopping $25,000 first place prize.
The destination may be glamorous, but the journey to re:Invent is just as sweet. There are still plenty of prizes up for grabs in each of the six global competition regions. In both September and October, the top 50 finishers and top three winners from each region will win $99 and $250 amazon.com gift cards, respectively. Additionally, the first 2,000 qualified racers who apply to the league worldwide each month will receive a $30 AWS credit.
Don’t miss your chance to make AWS DeepRacer history, hone your ML skills, collaborate with a global community, and win big: Join the 2024 AWS DeepRacer League today.
About the Author
Shashank Murthy He is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for AWS Machine Learning. His goal is to make machine learning more accessible to builders through hands-on educational experiences. Outside of work, he enjoys hiking in the Pacific Northwest, playing soccer, and obstacle courses.
