AI Racing Drone Beats Human Controlled FPV Racing Drones on Aerial Racetrack: An Overlooked ‘AlphaGo Moment’ with Future War Implications

AI Racing Drone Beats Human Controlled FPV Racing Drones on Aerial Racetrack: An Overlooked ‘AlphaGo Moment’ with Future War Implications

By: Dr. Robert J. Bunker of SWJ El Centro and Kaden K. Bunker

C/O Futures Weaponized Drone Research Note Series | 18 February 2026

“In April 2025 at the A2RL Drone Championship and Drone Champions League (DCL) competition in Abu Dhabi, an autonomous racing drone using neural network-based AI (artificial intelligence) control systems has—for the first time—beaten three human FPV (first person view) drone champions in a closed competitive aerial racing course. While this event with its head-to- head AI and human controlled drone knockout rounds has garnered little attention in the U.S. military and national security community, it is equivalent in some respects to the AlphaGo AI defeat of human Go champions in March 2016 and May 2017. The crossing of this former firebreak has implications for evolving war and conflict involving weaponized drone use on current and emergent battlefields globally.”

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