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This week, China’s leading robotics minds gathered in Beijing for a hotly-anticipated, Olympics-vogue event dubbed the arena’s first “Humanoid Robot Games.”
Over the course of legal over an hour, an assortment of wobbly, bipedal robots “competed” in soccer, operating, and kickboxing. Others danced alongside far extra coordinated youngsters, whereas a handful struggled to play pre-programmed instruments. The total awkward affair, touted as a showcase of the nation’s robotics prowess, highlighted how far the trade clean has to race to approach anything corresponding to human-stage performance.
In totally different phrases, the robots weren’t scary. They were legal plain goofy.
Humanoid Games: soccer, dancing, operating, and a complete bunch falling
The event, which began Thursday and runs thru the weekend, features 500 humanoid robots from 280 teams across 16 international locations. Teams consist of both private companies and researchers from high Chinese language universities. The Associated Press notes three heart faculty robotics teams also participated. All of the robots required ample space to pass—and, in many cases, stumble. To accommodate them, the event was held within the National Pace Skating Oval, a 12,000-seat arena originally constructed for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Livestreams of the competition showed a smattering of empty seats for the duration of the arena. Tickets reportedly trace between $25 and $80.
Coverage kicked off, after some delay, with a 1,500-meter race. Unitree, arguably China’s most fascinating-identified robotics company, won the race handily, with its entries taking first and third place. X-Humanoid, which won the first-ever humanoid robot half marathon earlier this year, came in second. But others didn’t halt at all. The Guardian reported that one robot was pressured to retire from the race after its head flopped off whereas rounding a nook.
“Defending [the head] balanced whereas in move is the supreme challenge for us,” Wang Zizi, one among the robot’s 19-year-weak creators said, according to The Guardian.
A humanoid robot is carried by technicians after being knocked out in a kickboxing match at the World Humanoid Robot Games on August 15, 2025. Image: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images Kevin Frayer
Once the race wrapped up, the event transitioned into a spectacle paying homage to an Olympics opening ceremony. Robots danced alongside human performers, whereas a robot “band” stood off to the aspect, pretending to play oversized guitars. One of the vital robot rockers, seated at the back of a drum living, appeared to actually play a rudimentary beat, although it’s unclear whether or no longer it was doing so autonomously or beneath the distant sustain watch over of a human operator.
The dancing robots jerked and spun as a video overhead showed press footage of robots working in comfort stores and helping around the house. A pop track with the repeating refrain “Future in my search” blared for the duration of the arena.
Probably the most robots were wearing fashionable hats and garments, walking across the stage runway-vogue and waving to a cheering crowd. At some level of this portion of the event, one among the waving robots—lined in sequins—tripped and face-planted. It lay there, prostrate, for a sturdy minute sooner than a pair of humans gingerly walked onto the stage and retrieved it, carrying it by its arms and legs admire a wounded soldier.
The runway robots were the first of several to battle against gravity. Kickboxing bots, equipped by Unitree, landed sturdy smacks nonetheless promptly toppled to the bottom when they overlooked a kick. A similar scene played out at some stage within the soccer match. One attacking robot eventually scored a goal most fascinating after repeatedly failing to bypass a largely stationary goalkeeper. When it finally did prevail, the goalkeeper robot appeared to lose its balance and collapsed to the bottom.
No longer so fast, humanoids
These “Humanoid Games” are the culmination of a months-lengthy push by the Chinese language authorities to promote and fast-track its rising robotics trade. Several cities, in conjunction with Beijing and Shanghai, have acquired billions in funding to assist as technological development hubs as the nation races to outpace the U.S. In the lead-as much as this event, Chinese language humanoid robot corporations also participated in a half-marathon and a reside-streamed boxing match.
All of those performances are part of an effort to showcase the technology and generate hype. But when that’s the ultimate goal, this week’s humanoid event may have ultimately accomplished extra harm than appropriate. As entertaining as it is to watch robots decapitate themselves whereas attempting to total a race, it doesn’t exactly inspire self assurance in companies promising to replace human workers or make in-house robot assistance a reality anytime soon.
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