They’re not the most elegant or quickest athletes. But they are learning.
From Friday to Sunday, human handlers from 16 nations put over 500 bipedal robots through various actions to demonstrate the potential and limitations of embodied artificial intelligence in the first-ever World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing.
The robotic players came in varied forms, sizes, and constructions, and they participated in 26 different sporting activities, including sprinting, kickboxing, and soccer. The extraordinary state-sponsored sports event at the National Speed Skating Oval, a Beijing Olympic site, occurred as the United States and China competed to determine the future of artificial intelligence.
No speed records were being established, and a lot of the athletes were prone to face plants and fizzling. While some robots malfunctioned during competition, others failed to do their job as intended. A running robot was shown in one widely shared video going off course and unintentionally toppling a human on the track.
For the robots’ creators, however, the games were more about evaluating their agility, stamina, and battery life—all of which have significantly improved in recent years—than about winning or losing. Other humanoids competed in more practical job skills including hotel concierge work and medicine sorting.
A group from StarBot, a tech business located in California that focuses on creating customer service-oriented robots, expressed their excitement about participating in the games to the media.
“Coming to China and being in a setting where everything is so modern and up to date was a really good opportunity,” firm spokesperson Gregorio Velasco told.
Based on the Chinese-made Unitree model, StarBot’s machines participated in races centered around customer service since they are excellent at restaurant tasks like taking orders and bringing meals to tables, he added.
According to Velasco, They aspire to be in people’s homes, restaurants, and hotels in the future. He also believes that many people will have robots in their daily lives.
As the events began Friday, the arena was crowded with fans who cheered, applauded, and laughed at the robot athletes.
A team of judges kept a close eye on the robot competitors as they performed to the tunes of mellow music during the tai chi competition. They took notes and scored the performances with the gravity of an Olympic panel.
Zhang Jidong, a martial arts judge, told the Chinese official publication The Beijing News that robots must practice a single maneuver several times before they can execute it steadily. “It was impressive how smoothly the robots moved their upper bodies given the extremely short preparation time.”
The games demonstrated more than simply how far robotics has advanced and how humanoids may eventually be incorporated into everyday life. They also disclosed the extent to which the Chinese government has been supporting the advancement of these technologies in an effort to bridge the artificial intelligence divide with the United States.
China unveiled its global AI action plan in July, a few days after the Trump administration unveiled its U.S. counterpart. Experts say this is “no coincidence” as the two nations compete to persuade others to support their different approaches to AI regulation. Both nations view AI as a national security concern, and the United States has attempted to prevent China from obtaining the cutting-edge semiconductor chips required for AI model training.
China offers to assist developing countries with AI as a way to further state control, while the United States supports market-driven AI in line with liberal values, according to the Washington-based think group Atlantic Council.
Videos depicting robots performing, dancing, and punching have been widely circulated on Chinese social media and state television as Beijing has increased its investment in and promotion of AI. The Chinese government hosted a half-marathon in Beijing in April, where human and robot runners competed.
Similar to the electric car business, Beijing has been investing tens of billions of dollars in AI research and governmental subsidies for years, attracting criticism from the West for unfair competition.
According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, Chinese businesses are motivated by government policy to focus on mass-producing inexpensive robots, while American robot developers like Boston Dynamics continue to dominate high-end research and innovation.
According to Morgan Stanley research, China is expected to have 302.3 million humanoid robots in use by 2050, far more than the United States’ estimate of only 77.7 million.
Even if the two nations’ output gaps would widen, analysts predicted that the United States would continue to have an edge in overall compute capacity, which is a parameter that is more likely to be crucial for the large-scale deployment and integration of AI systems.
A spokeswoman for the Chinese robot development company NexAurora, Wang Xiaoyin, stated that modern robots still do not have a “robust AI brain.”
According to him, the “real AI age” won’t start until robots like the ones competing in Beijing are able to think and act on their own after being trained.
Although the robots’ performance over the weekend demonstrated that day is still a ways off, the games were a part of China’s broader objective: advancing, one awkward step at a time, in the global battle for AI dominance.
