Press release / 16 September 2026
CENTRAL JAVA, INDONESIA — Data Sorcerers announces preparations for the inaugural Sorcery AI Racing League (SARL) 2026, a virtual autonomous racing competition designed to discover and develop talented young Indonesians in automation, artificial intelligence and control engineering. With a championship planned for Central Java, the initiative invites emerging builders to turn their ideas into systems that can observe, decide and act on a virtual circuit.
At the heart of SARL is a simple challenge with demanding engineering questions: can your code drive? Participants will develop the intelligence behind a virtual racing car, making decisions about steering, acceleration and braking as the vehicle encounters corners and changing conditions. The organizer plans to provide the simulation environment, equivalent vehicles and evaluation scenarios, creating a shared setting in which the quality of each participant’s approach can be tested.
Discovering the people behind the next generation of automation.
Indonesia’s young technical talent needs opportunities to move beyond a working demonstration and explore what happens when a system is asked to perform consistently. SARL is being developed around that step. A controller may look convincing in one corner yet struggle in another; a learned policy may achieve a fast lap but need further work to remain reliable when the conditions change. Those questions make racing a useful setting for disciplined experimentation.
The event’s purpose is to help identify talented young builders who can turn programming knowledge into autonomous behavior, investigate failures and improve their designs with evidence. SARL 2026 welcomes teams of two to four active D4/applied bachelor’s, S1/bachelor’s and S2/master’s students, or local equivalents, enrolled at accredited higher-education institutions across Southeast Asia. Members may come from different eligible campuses, countries and study programs.
For Data Sorcerers, the opportunity extends beyond a leaderboard. A well-developed entry can tell an engineering story: what its creator tried, why a decision was made, what did not work and how the system improved. SARL aims to give that work a visible stage and encourage participants to take their technical curiosity further.
Two divisions. Different methods. A shared drive to improve.
The competition is planned around two divisions that recognize different ways of building autonomous decision-making. Spellcraft, the Logic Drivers Track, is for participants who engineer the driving process through programmed algorithms, rules, optimization and classical control. A Spellcraft driver might estimate the shape of an approaching corner, calculate a safe target speed and continuously correct its position on the road.
Neuralcraft, the Neural Drivers Track, is for systems in which a trained neural component meaningfully influences driving decisions. Depending on the final rules, an entry might use reinforcement learning, imitation learning, neuroevolution or a hybrid approach that combines a learned planner with classical control. Participants will need to explain what the neural component contributes, rather than simply attach an AI label to an otherwise unrelated part of the project.
Spellcraft and Neuralcraft offer two ways to enter. The detailed division allocation will be published before registration opens. Equivalent vehicles and evaluation conditions are intended to keep attention on the driver systems that participants build. The Resources library explains the proposed category boundaries and deliverables; final sporting and technical requirements will be issued by the organizer as preparation progresses.
The ambition: a prestigious national stage, earned through the competition.
Data Sorcerers intends to develop SARL into a prestigious national event for emerging automation and AI talent. That ambition is grounded in the quality of the competition itself: meaningful technical challenges, transparent evaluation, clearly communicated rules and respect for the work of every participant. A strong result should reflect a system’s demonstrated performance under the published conditions.
The final rewards the fastest valid recorded race time. This encourages teams to think about a complete autonomous driver, including the cases that do not go as planned. It also creates room for different engineering strengths to matter: careful modeling, robust software, thoughtful training and systematic testing can all contribute to a more capable entry.
Prestige will take time to establish. The inaugural season is an opportunity to build that foundation with the participant community and develop a competition whose standards can become stronger over successive editions. SARL is presented as an ambitious new initiative, with its reputation to be earned through the experience it delivers.
From a first experiment to a driver you can explain.
Prospective participants can begin by exploring how observations become actions. The website introduces the competition format, the differences between Spellcraft and Neuralcraft, and an educational preview of a controller contract. These materials can help builders identify the skills they want to develop while the official simulator, SDK and final submission requirements are being prepared.
The work does not begin and end with writing a controller. Teams will need to decide what to measure, compare experiments fairly and keep track of the changes that improve performance. Explaining those decisions is part of making the project useful beyond race day: the resulting code, experiments and technical narrative can become a starting point for further study or future projects, subject to the final submission and sharing rules.
The currently available demos and generated racing visuals illustrate the concept. They are not a substitute for the official simulator, an approved circuit layout or a confirmed physical venue. Release announcements and versioned technical guidance will be published through the Developer Hub and Race Centre.
The road to Central Java.
Registration is planned for early November 2026, followed by four online race weeks. Each week accepts up to 50 entries and advances its top five, forming a final field of 20. Exact race-week dates remain to be announced. The championship is planned for 18–20 December 2026 in Central Java, Indonesia, with the exact venue to be confirmed by the organizer.
Preparation and qualification are planned to take place online, allowing entrants to develop and test their systems before the championship stage. The proposed finalist arrangements include in-person attendance in Central Java by at least one team member. Prospective participants should consult the final attendance requirements before booking travel or making commitments based on the planning schedule.
On 18 December, the 20 finalists build their AI from scratch for a new organizer-selected track. On 19 December, qualifying times determine starting positions, with time to evaluate and refine their machines. On 20 December, the tuned drivers compete in the Grand Prix.
The October roadshow and pre-event program introduces SARL through seminars, webinars, campus roadshows and info sessions. Details will be published on the Events page.
Registration remains closed and does not accept official entries. SARL charges no entry or competition fee through the final. Teams cover their own travel, accommodation and personal expenses; the organizer provides lunch, dinner, snacks and mineral water during the scheduled onsite final program. Participants should use the website’s official updates as their reference as detailed procedures become available.
About Sorcery AI Racing League.
Sorcery AI Racing League is an initiative by Data Sorcerers that uses virtual autonomous racing to challenge builders in automation, control and AI. The 2026 event marks SARL’s first season. Its long-term goal is to create an enduring platform where Indonesian technical talent can demonstrate its abilities, learn through competition and bring more ambitious autonomous systems to life.
Official announcements, development updates and participant resources are published on the SARL website. A dedicated media contact will be announced through Race Centre. Until then, readers can learn about the organizer through the Data Sorcerers website and follow the league’s published channels for confirmed competition information.
Visit Data Sorcerers · Explore competition resources · Read participant FAQs · Follow Race Centre