The Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) hit a significant milestone with the successful hosting of the world’s first multi-car autonomous race at this year’s CES in Las Vegas.
The race, which was held at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on January 9, saw four IAC AV-24 autonomous racecars, piloted by AI drivers hailing from several top global universities, compete in a 20-lap exhibition race
Featuring a progressive, tiered competition format, nine teams competed across three separate race events, with Autonomous Tiger Racing (Auburn University) taking the victory in the Tier 1 single-car time trials with a lap average of 163.6 MPH, beating out IU Luddy (Indiana University) and Caltech Autonomous Systems and Technologies Racer team (California Institute of Technology)’s averages of 158.0 MPH and 144.2 MPH, respectively.
Tier 2’s passing competition saw Purdue AI Racing (Purdue University), AI Racing Tech (University of California, Berkeley), with University of Hawai’i, University of California, San Diego, and Carnegie Mellon University challenged to demonstrate both strategic racing and AI adaptability in close-quarter scenarios, with AI Racing Tech taking the victory from Purdue AI Racing with a 162 MPH in the final round’s closing seconds.
Finishing the day, Tier 3, the main event, saw four autonomous racecars from UNIMORE Racing (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy), Cavalier Autonomous Racing (University of Virginia), (PoliMOVE-MSU – Politecnico di Milano, Italy) and Michigan State University, with University of Alabama and KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea) compete in the aforementioned 20-lap exhibition race, with UNIMORE crossing the finish line just under three-tenths of a second before Cavalier.
As well as races, the IAC also announced its new commercial spinout, Aidoptation, which aims to leverage the series’ work in high-speed mobility and autonomous systems, at CES 2025. The spinout will be based in Belgium, and will focus on the commercialisation of the IAC’s intellectual property.
Finally, the IAC held a series of conferences at the show in Las Vegas, with its display in the West Hall lobby featuring the world’s fastest autonomous racecar, the IAC AV-24 (which would later be used in the races themselves).
