{"id":433902,"date":"2026-01-28T02:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T02:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/433902\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T02:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T02:17:13","slug":"anduril-has-invented-a-wild-new-drone-flying-contest-where-jobs-are-the-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/433902\/","title":{"rendered":"Anduril has invented a wild new\u00a0drone-flying contest where jobs are the prize\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anduril founder Palmer Luckey\u2019s eyes light up, and he talks a mile a minute, when discussing his company\u2019s new recruiting event:\u00a0the\u00a0AI Grand Prix.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a drone-flying contest with a twist. Rather than humans operating drones, the drones must operate autonomously. The humans will be tested on their software-writing skills that cause the drones to outfly their competition.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are prizes ranging from a $500,000 pot\u00a0to\u00a0be spilt amongst\u00a0the\u00a0highest-scoring teams, to jobs at Anduril and a\u00a0chance to bypass the company\u2019s standard recruiting cycle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was something that I decided we should do,\u201d Luckey said in an interview with TechCrunch. Luckey and the team were meeting to discuss recruitment strategy, he recalled.<\/p>\n

Someone suggested sponsoring a drone-racing tournament, which was somewhat in line with the company\u2019s previous marketing tactics. For instance, Anduril sponsors the NASCAR Cup Series race known as the\u00a0Anduril 250<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Luckey generally liked the idea but then\u00a0told the team,\u00a0\u201c\u2018Guys, that would be a\u00a0really dumb\u00a0thing for Anduril to sponsor. The whole point, our entire impetus and reason for being, is this pitch that autonomy has finally advanced to where you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have to have a person micromanaging each drone,\u2019\u201d he recalled, then added,\u00a0\u201c\u2018What we should really do is sponsor a race that\u2019s about how well programmers and engineers can make a drone fly itself.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After\u00a0discovering that such an event\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0exist,\u00a0the company opted to create it themselves. Interestingly, though, Luckey pointed out that the teams in the AI Grand Prix will not be flying Anduril\u2019s drones, but those built by another\u00a0defense tech\u00a0startup:\u00a0Neros\u00a0Technologies<\/a>.\u00a0According to Luckey, Anduril\u2019s drones are too physically big to run in the contained\u00a0course in Ohio where the finals will take place.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about having teams use Anduril drones, but Anduril\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0make any drones that are of the ultra-high speed,\u00a0very small\u00a0nature that you would want for a Drone Racing League.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0mostly bigger stuff,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anduril is also partnering with one of the established racing leagues,\u00a0the\u00a0Drone Champions League, to operate the event, as well as JobsOhio. The final race will take place in Ohio (where\u00a0Anduril\u2019s\u00a0key\u00a0manufacturing facility<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0located).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although Luckey is clearly excited about how fun the event will be,\u00a0he won\u2019t be a racer himself.\u00a0\u201cI absolutely will be there,\u201d he says, but \u201cit\u2019s\u00a0going to be about who can build the best software to pilot these drones.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He smiled and said, \u201cI\u2019m\u00a0not actually\u00a0a very good\u00a0software programmer.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0more of a hardware guy.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0an electromechanical and optical guy, and I know just enough about coding to glue stuff together in a way that works for my prototypes.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Luckey calls\u00a0Anduril CEO\u00a0Brian Schimpf\u00a0\u201cour de facto lead software brains\u201d at the company.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The founder is hoping for\u00a0at least\u00a050 teams, and already has interest from\u00a0multiple\u00a0universities, he\u00a0said. Should this competition be a successful event, the plan is to expand it into\u00a0races\u00a0with the other types of autonomous vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u00a0are starting with these quadcopter racing drones, which is what people expect from drone racing. However, we want to be, in the future, applying AI racing to other platforms as well,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Underwater\u00a0AI racing, ground\u00a0AI racing,\u00a0potentially even AI\u00a0racing of\u00a0spacecraft were some of the ideas Luckey shared.<\/p>\n

The contest is open to all international entrants, excluding teams from Russia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe difference with Russia is they are actively engaged in the act of invading Europe,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The concern is that the people qualified to enter such a race may also be working for their nation\u2019s military. \u201cI would love to have everybody, but we\u2019re not the Olympics,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Luckey said the event was following the lead from the World Cup, which has also excluded Russia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Interestingly, teams from China (home to a lot of autonomous engineering) are welcome, despite it being the\u00a0country that\u00a0U.S. autonomous weapons hawks<\/a>\u00a0often name as their biggest fear.<\/p>\n

Should a Chinese team win, the prize of a job at Anduril, which makes weapons used by the U.S. military, would not be a given. \u201cIf you work for the Chinese military, you\u2019re not going to be allowed to get a job at Anduril,\u201d Luckey said. Certain laws apply, he pointed out. In fact,\u00a0there will still be some interviews and a qualification process for all the job candidates.<\/p>\n

The competition will take place across three qualifying rounds\u00a0beginning in April, with the final Grand Prix race scheduled for\u00a0November.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anduril founder Palmer Luckey\u2019s eyes light up, and he talks a mile a minute, when discussing his company\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,16143,181,507,12132,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-433902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-anduril","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-palmer-luckey","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}