A Chinese university team won the 21st RoboSub Competition for the first time on Aug. 6 in San Diego, California, China News reported.

RoboSub is an underwater robotics program, in which teams from top universities and colleges around the world design and build Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to complete various underwater missions.

The team from Harbin Engineering University, China, won first prize, which until this year had only ever been won by U.S. and Canadian teams since it began in 1998, an entire 21 years ago.

The annual event, the best of its kind in the world, is co-sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Foundation and the Office of Naval Research (ONR).