The Palmer Luckey-founded defense company Anduril has launched a new drone racing competition. The catch? No humans are allowed to enter. Anduril is looking for the fastest and most capable AI pilots for future drone technologies, and it’s offering $500,000 in prize money and new career opportunities at Anduril for the engineers and developers who can program the winners, TechCrunch reports.
The idea for a drone racing competition reportedly stemmed from a marketing meeting, where Anduril staffers suggested sponsoring a drone contest in the same way they do Nascar events. However, Luckey believed highlighting human pilots would conflict with the company’s mission, which involves promoting autonomous technologies. When his team learned that no one else was running an AI drone racing competition, they decided that Anduril should launch one itself.
All participants will have to fly agile miniature Neros Technology drones. (Anduril’s own is reportedly too large to run the course it’s designing in Ohio for the finals.) If the competition proves popular, there is scope to expand into other drone types
“We are starting with these quadcopter racing drones, which is what people expect from drone racing,” Luckey told TechCrunch. “However, we want to be, in the future, applying AI racing to other platforms as well.”
The competition is being managed in partnership with the established Drone Champions League, and there are hopes that some 50 teams will take part. It’s already reportedly received a lot of interest from multiple universities. If the event proves successful, Anduril plans to expand it into other drone theaters as well, potentially including ground-based, underwater AI racing, and even AI spacecraft in the future.
The competition is open internationally, though Luckey has stated Russian teams will not be allowed to enter due to the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. He did say Chinese teams would be allowed to enter; however, if a Chinese team wins, they won’t receive employment offers. He also clarified that anyone who wins the contest will still have to go through an interview and qualification process to receive a final job offer.
For anyone keen to take part, the competition will begin qualifying rounds in April, with the final races scheduled for November.