Roborace unveiled its Robocar at MWC’s ‘Connected Vehicles’ keynote, with CEO Denis Sverdlov stating the initiative will push the industry to improve driverless and autonomous vehicles.

He also believes driverless car racing will help people accept robots on the street, and is a great way to show the public the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI).

“It was very important for us that we created an emotional connection to driverless cars and bring humans and robots closer together to define our future,” he said.

Software engineers will be the “true heroes” of the initiative, which is a “fair competition” of intelligence rather than budget, as all teams have the same Robocar to work with – in order to win they have to focus entirely on the software.

So far, Roborace has performed demos with ‘Devbots’, which completed 12 driverless laps in Morocco. Despite a recent crash, Sverdlov is confident in the technology, adding that accidents will only help improve learning.

The car, designed by Daniel Simon, who created vehicles for Hollywood sci-fi films like Tron Legacy, uses a number of technologies to drive itself including two radars and six AI cameras, and makes up to 24 trillion AI operations per second.

The Roborace series takes place on Formula E city street circuits.

Alejandro Agag, CEO of Formula E, said all the big auto companies, like Audi, Renault and Mahindra, want their teams to win and this pushes them to invest resources into improving electric cars, and this will play a big role in boosting the autonomous car industry.