He AWS DeepRacer League AWS DeepRacer League is the world’s first open-to-all, machine learning (ML)-powered autonomous racing league. AWS DeepRacer brings together developers from around the world and creates a community to learn ML hands-on through friendly autonomous racing competitions. As we celebrate the accomplishments of over 560,000 participants from over 150 countries who have honed their skills through the AWS DeepRacer League over the past 6 years, we’re also preparing to close this chapter with a final season that serves as a victory lap and a launching pad for what’s next in the world of AWS DeepRacer.
The Legacy of AWS DeepRacer
The AWS DeepRacer Community is the heart of the league, where enthusiasts and league legends help foster learning for a global network of AWS DeepRacer participants at any stage of their machine learning journey. When we launched AWS DeepRacer in 2018, we set out to make the concepts of training machine learning models more accessible.
By removing common hurdles associated with preparing to train and evaluate ML models, AWS DeepRacer gives developers a fun way to focus on fundamental concepts of model training, evaluation, and performance—all without any prior experience.
The impact of racing in the league goes far beyond the podium and prizes: many participants use their AWS DeepRacer experience and community support to advance their careers.
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“Taking on the challenges of AWS DeepRacer not only sharpened my technical skills, but also opened the door to new roles where innovation and agility are key. Every lap on the track is another step toward mastering the tools that power modern solutions, preparing me for the future of technology.”
– Daryl Jezierski, AWS DeepRacer League veteran, Site Reliability Lead Engineer at The Walt Disney Company.
Every year, hundreds of AWS customers, including Vodafone and Eviden, host AWS DeepRacer events to train their employees on the fundamentals of machine learning through collaborative, gamified education.
Transitioning to an AWS Solution
While the AWS DeepRacer League will no longer be a global competition hosted by AWS in 2025, you can continue to access the AWS DeepRacer service for training, assessment, and community racing in the AWS Management Console through December 2025.
In early 2025, the AWS DeepRacer source code will also be available as an AWS Solution—a ready-to-use implementation of the underlying AWS services, code, and configurations that make up the AWS DeepRacer service. In the near term, this gives you the option to choose the AWS DeepRacer experience that works best for your organization’s needs. The new solution retains all existing features of the AWS DeepRacer console for training reinforcement learning models with amazon SageMaker, evaluating models in a simulated 3D environment, as well as race management controls such as creating, hosting, and managing global races. The new AWS solution now offers even more flexibility, enabling organizations to deliver ML education to employees at scale while choosing the best optimizations in terms of cost and convenience to meet their needs.
AWS DeepRacer remains the fastest way to get started with the fundamentals of ML training, with tens of thousands of developers using AWS DeepRacer programs within their organizations in 2024 alone. In addition to our customers using AWS DeepRacer to power their ML transformation efforts, many of them have told us they are eager to have their teams apply their new skills to solve real business problems with artificial intelligence (ai).
To help you take the next step in your journey, we’re launching four new AWS DeepRacer workshops focused on generative ai at AWS re:Invent 2024. These hands-on 200- and 300-level sessions combine fundamental machine learning concepts with AWS DeepRacer with basic model training and tuning techniques using AWS services like SageMaker and amazon Bedrock for popular industry use cases. All four workshops will be available out-of-the-box with the AWS DeepRacer managed solution starting in 2025.
The path to re:Invent
As the AWS DeepRacer League Finals nears an exciting conclusion, all eyes are on the final round of the season. In the 2024 League, a round spans two monthly races, with the top racers from each of the six global regions earning a trip to compete in the re:Invent Championships based on their cumulative performance across both races. September marks the launch of the fourth and final round, the only remaining path for league hopefuls to earn the coveted, all-expenses-paid trip to compete for this year’s record-breaking championship prize money of $50,000 USD. If you don’t secure a spot during the regular season, you’ll still have a chance to advance by competing live in person during the Last Chance Qualifying Round on December 2 in Las Vegas. For those skilled enough to enter this year’s championship, the stakes have never been higher. Thirty-two racers will compete for the title of AWS DeepRacer 2024 Champion and a massive first-place cash prize of $25,000 USD.
The destination may be glamorous, but the road to re:Invent is just as sweet, with plenty of prizes still up for grabs in each of the six global competition regions. In both September and October, the top 50 and top 3 winners in each region will receive $99 and $250 amazon.com gift cards, respectively. Additionally, the first 2,000 eligible racers to sign up for the league globally each month will receive $30 in AWS credits.
Don’t miss your chance to be part of the AWS DeepRacer story, develop your machine learning skills, collaborate with a global community, and win big. Enter the AWS DeepRacer League 2024 today!
About the author
Shashank Murthy Shashank is a Senior Product Marketing Manager at AWS Machine Learning. His goal is to make machine learning more accessible to developers through hands-on educational experiences. For fun outside of work, Shashank enjoys hiking in the Pacific Northwest, playing soccer, and participating in obstacle course races.
