The DARPA Surgical Competition is officially live, and I don't think I have been this excited about anything in my career. I have been part of the surgical robotics and AI community since 2017, and the progress has been remarkable to watch. Ask anyone who actually works in this space and they will tell you full surgical automation is not possible today, even if the popular press suggests otherwise. But what I have always believed is that this community never needed a headline. It needed a chance to take a real crack at the problem. This is that chance, and it is the first of many. We will find out what works, what does not, and where the research still has to go. When DARPA ran its first self driving challenge, the course was 142 miles and the winner made it just over 7. Today we have an entire self driving car industry. I expect much the same here. Falling short is not failure. It is a starting line, and DARPA is giving this community the opportunity to stand on it. There is funding. There is a real test setup. There is data. And there is no requirement to use a cleared clinical system. Bring whatever robot and team makes it work. Why does this matter? Because we ask our service members to face danger every single day, and when things go wrong, minutes and seconds decide who comes home. A wounded soldier cut off from evacuation. Someone stranded in a remote corner of the world. An astronaut on the moon. This is the technology that reaches them when no one else can. If you want in, start here: Register for the competition: centralfloridatechgrove.org/… Industry Day, September 22 in Arlington, Virginia, with a virtual option. Registration closes September 16 at 4 p.m. ET, so do not wait: darpa.mil/events/2026/indust… Competition overview and resources: darpa.mil/research/challenge… I am proud to be working on this from the government side, and I cannot wait to see what this community builds. The problem is psychotically hard. Good. Let's go. @Ken_Goldberg @Oz_Meireles @FilicoriMD @Laparoscopes @MichaelYipUCSD @Ken_Goldberg @krieger_axel @DanStoyanov @prokarurol @AjhungMD @RoboticsUrology @berkeley_ai @AUTOLab_Cal @GRASPlab @CMU_Robotics @SRV_Group @socroboticsurg @SAGES_Updates @acsJACS @traumadoctors #RoboticSurgery #SurgicalAI #MedicalRobotics #MedTech