Ever since the launch of Amazon Web Services Inc.’s DeepRacer in 2018, tens of thousands of developers from around the world have been getting hands-on experience with reinforcement learning in the AWS Management Console by building their AWS DeepRacer models and competing in the AWS DeepRacer League for a chance to be crowned the AWS DeepRacer League Champion at Amazon’s yearly re:Invent conference.

“COVID has restricted our ability to have our in-person races, so we’ve really gone gangbusters with our virtual league,” said Mike Miller (pictured), general manager of AWS AI devices at AWS. “So we have monthly races for competitors that culminate in a championship at re:Invent. So this year, we’ve got over 100 competitors who have qualified and who are racing virtually with us.”

Miller spoke with Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent. They discussed DeepRacer’s growing contributions to machine learning, as well as new machine learning services in AWS. (* Disclosure below.)

DeepRacer helps train and engage all skill levels on machine learning

Not only has DeepRacer gotten many developers participating in the league, but AWS continues to see great traction and adoption amongst its big customers, according to Miller. Enterprises are using DeepRacer for hands-on training for their workforce in machine learning. Over 150 customers from the likes of Capital One Financial Corp., DBS Bank Ltd., Accenture PLC, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) and Toyota Motor Corp. have held DeepRacer events for their workforces.

“Three of those customers — Accenture, DBS Bank, and JPMorgan Chase — have each trained over 1,000 employees in their organizations, because they are just super excited and they find that DeepRacer is a way to drive that excitement and engagement across their customers,” Miller described. “We even had Capitol One expand this to their families. So Capitol One ran a DeepRacer Kids Cup — a family-friendly virtual competition this past year, where over 250 children and 200 families got to get hands on with machine learning.”

According to Miller, DeepRacer is lowering the learning curve for machine learning — in particular a branch called reinforcement learning, where someone can train an agent through trial and error to learn how to do a new complex task.

“DeepRacer is just fun to get your hands on. So you’ve got not just the hardcore deep data scientists or the ML engineers. You’ve got web front-end programmers. You’ve even have some nontechnical folks who want to get their hands dirty and learn about machine learning. And DeepRacer really is a nice, gradual introduction to doing that. You can get engaged with it with very little code knowledge at all,” Miller concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: Amazon Web Services Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither AWS nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE