DeepRacer has had a busy few months. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s been happening across the platform, on the track, and under the hood.
Custom OS on the car
AWS has published official guidance for installing a custom operating system on DeepRacer devices, opening the hardware up for experimentation well beyond the stock workflow, and the community has responded with an entire OS image. In parallel Todd Bevins has published a two-piece blog post on how to build a DeepRacer from scratch.
- Don Barber and Lars Ludvigsen on AWS Machine Learning Blog: Custom OS installation now available on AWS DeepRacer devices
- Lars Ludvigsen on AWS Builder Center: Unchain your AWS DeepRacer by upgrading it to Ubuntu 24.04
- Todd Bevins on AWS Builder Center: Building a Modern AWS DeepRacer Replacement Using Off-the-Shelf Components (Part 1)
- Todd Bevins on AWS Builder Center: Building a Modern AWS DeepRacer Replacement Using Off-the-Shelf Components (Part 2)
Events are coming back
Physical racing is back on track. Cars were live on the tarmac again at AWS Summit Madrid’s Student Builder Zone, and the buzz around the track made it clear how much it has been missed.
Even better, DeepRacer is reaching a new generation. The region of Aragón has committed to hosting the first National AWS DeepRacer Championship in Spain, open to students aged 14 and up — a strong signal that the next wave of racers is already lining up. In Germany, Accenture and Stiftung Startchance brought DeepRacer to a similar age-group, running a hands-on workshop where children programmed their own DeepRacer cars with the help of Accenture coaches before racing them against each other. In the US an immersive AI camp hosted by Leidos, NCCU and AWS lets high-school juniors learn AI hands-on, and in China the Duke Kunshan university hosted a Self-Driving Summer Program also targeting high-school students.
Upcoming action: In Germany, the DeepRacer Cup hosted by XL2 is returning again in 2026, bringing organized competitive racing back to the community.
- Aragón to Host the First National AWS DeepRacer Championship - Go Aragón
- Stiftung Startchance on LinkedIn: Accenture DeepRacer workshop
- Students at immersive AI Camp explore career paths
- Self-Driving Summer Program - Global Summer Institute
- DeepRacer Cup 2026 – KI trifft Racing
DeepRacer on AWS is evolving
DeepRacer on AWS just released v1.2.0, headlined by Live Racing — facilitator-managed, real-time races with a dedicated live race page, broadcast mode for big screens, queue management, autolaunch, participant notifications, a winner overlay, and live leaderboard updates via AWS IoT Core. The release also adds model search/download by username, version indicators in the Admin WebConsole, faster evaluation video processing, an 80% reduction in eval/submission job shutdown time, SES domain identity support, and a batch of bug fixes.