Box, run, crash: China’s humanoid robot games show advances and limitations | China

A Fast left hooks, a front kick on the chest, a few cross and sensitive bumps and the crowd cheers. But it is not a kickboxing ability to complete the match. It is an attempted roundhouse kick that misses his goal and sends the kickboxer from a top university team that falls on the floor.

While traditional kickboxing is associated with the risk of blood, sweat and severe head injuries, the competitors were facing the first challenges on Friday at the first humanoid players in Beijing. Balance, battery life and a feeling of philosophical purpose among them.

The kickboxers, humanoid robots in a pint size, which were entered by teams of leading Chinese technological universities, are part of a jamboree of humanoid events that take place at China's latest technology event. After the audience in the National Speed Skating Oval with 12,000 seats, which were built for the 2022 Winter Olympics, stood for the Chinese national anthem on Friday morning, the games supported by the government began.

“I came here from curiosity,” said Hong Yun, a 58-year-old retired engineer, was sitting in the front row. The robot race is “much more exciting to see than real people,” added Hong.

The games show China's skills in humanoid robotics, a technological area that was put in the foreground in the country's artificial intelligence industry. The hype machine is in full swing.

In addition to kickboxing, humanoids took part in athletics, football and dance competitions. A robot had to get out of the 1500-meter robot because his head flew on the track on the track. “Hold [the head] The biggest challenge for us is balanced in movement, ”said Wang Ziyi, a 19-year-old student at Beijing Union University, who was part of the team that entered the robot.

Since a troop Humanoid dancing robot, the stage of the Spring Festival Gala 2025, a lunar new year broadcast on television, looked at almost 17 billion Times online Excellent in this year's state work report in March.

The social media-friendly events reflect a more serious geopolitical reality: an intensified US China Technological competition That could change the limits of the AI.

The technology has become a lightning section for Relationships between the two countries. And while the United States is still a lead in border research, among other things due to the restrictions in Washington for exporting tips in China, Beijing responds to real applications such as robotics.

Several cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, have set up 10 billion yuan (£ 1 billion) Robotics Industry Fund. In January, the state bank of China announced plans for a 1TN Yuan of financial support for the AI industry over the next five years.

“If there is an area in which [Beijing] thinks that China is ahead or could be positioned as a world leader, then they really want to draw attention to this area, ”said Dr. Kyle Chan, researcher at Princeton University.

It is something strange threatening, jerky, human robot with two arms, two legs and empty heads to see from the ring in order to be charged by their human handlers.

When it comes to humanoids, the Chinese industry has many advantages. Although US companies like Tesla and Boston Dynamics It is still considered the entire market leader, several Chinese companies such as Ubtech and UNTREE -ROBOTIC, which provided the boxing robots in the games on Friday, get up.

Tesla relies on China for many of the parts required to build up the physical humanoid of the company. The US investment bank Morgan Stanley estimates that the supply chains based in China produce robots of a third of the costs for non-China suppliers. “It seems to be very difficult to coordinate from China in this area,” Sheng Zhong, head of the bank of the China Industrials Research at the bank, recently wrote.

China not only generates positive advertising on social media, but also sees humanoids as part of the solution to the problems caused by the aging population of the country and the shrinking workforce. In a recent article in People's Daily, a language tube of the China Communist Party, Robot could offer older people practical and emotional support. “The vision of older care for robots is not far away,” it said. Humanoid robots could also take the place of employees on factories, while China tries to kill and implement his workforce into more hi-tech jobs.

With all the hype, however, there is a large gap between humanoids that stumble across footballs and reliably do the daily tasks. It would be another jump to interact with people in need of protection. “The house is probably one of the last places where you will find a humanoid robot out of security,” said Chan. “My general view of the entire humanoid explosion … is honestly a bit of skepticism.”

Two of the biggest obstacles to technology that are useful outside of PR stunts are the complexity of the people built by humans and the hands that are required for navigation.

While other forms of AI, such as B. Large language models that can be trained with tons of digital data are available to form a lot of smaller data records for the formation of an algorithm, such as flowing through overcrowded restaurants or stairs. Although China's efforts to bring robots into the real world can help companies harvest more data, it is still a big bottleneck in the industry, said Chan.

Dr. Jonathan Aitken, a robotic teacher at the University of Sheffield, agreed. “The condition of the AI cannot be seen far from how humanoids work out of uncontrolled environments,” he said.

And while robots that jump and kick, impressive, worldly daily tasks such as the conversion of a kitchen knife or the folding laundry requires skillful hands, a skill technology company does not have to be cracked. A human hand has about 27 “degrees of freedom” – ie independent movements through the room. Teslas Optimus Humanoid, one of the most advanced models on the market, has 22.

Nevertheless, China has already surpassed the chances when it comes to turbocharged progress. 10 years ago, the country exported fewer than 375,000 cars per year. Now China is the world's largest automotive supplier, which sends almost 6 million vehicles annually. The European Union has increased the tariffs for Chinese electric vehicles to exceed the river.

In China, the political and public will is firmly behind the humanoids. Zhan Guangtao came to the humanoids with her two daughters on Friday after the school of her older child gave them free tickets. “It is good to get my children into contact with the most advanced robotics in the world,” said Zhan. “To expose you to the hi-tech will expand your horizon.”

Additional research by Lillian Yang