China to hold first World Humanoid Robot Games
Following the world's first humanoid robots' marathon in April and kickboxing match in May, both held in China, the first World Humanoid Robot Games (WHRG) will be held in Beijing from August 15 to 17. More than 100 international teams will join the sports events.
Beijing will also host the 2025 World Robot Conference (WRC) from August 8 to 12.
Chen Ying, vice president and secretary-general of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, said the WRC will feature more than 200 exhibitors, a fifth of them foreign firms. He added that more than 30 renowned global experts will attend the WRC.
Chinese robot makers including United and AgiBot will showcase their latest humanoid models.
As a curtain raiser of the WHRG, a 3 vs 3 football match for humanoid robots called the 2025RoBoLeague, co-organized by China's Booster Robotics and state-owned Shangyicheng (Beijing) Technology and Culture Group, kicked off in Beijing on June 28. To ensure fairness, all teams must use Booster's T1 robots.
'This is the first test match of the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games, and also the first fully autonomous AI robot football match in China,' said Dou Jing, executive director of the tournament organizing committee and deputy general manager of Shangyicheng (Beijing) Technology and Culture Group.
'This competition achieved two major technical breakthroughs: firstly, all participating robots operated entirely based on AI-driven strategies, requiring no human intervention, including autonomous fall recovery,' Cheng Hao, founder of Booster Robotics, told the Global Times. 'Secondly, the tournament introduced an optimized penalty and referee system, significantly reducing game interruptions and enhancing the flow and intensity of matches.'
Cheng said football, as a typical scenario of confrontation and collaboration, provides the public with an intuitive understanding of the real-world application potential of humanoid robots.
Chinanews.com reported that after three hours of competition, a team from Tsinghua University won the football match.
It added that the competition demonstrated robots' technical achievements in motion control, visual perception, positioning and navigation, decision-making planning, and multi-machine collaboration.
According to footage, some robots lost balance for no reason. Some could not get up and had to be taken away by staff members. A robot kicked the ball into its team's net and then collided with another robot.
Shangyicheng said it will continue to deepen the construction of the robot industry ecosystem, promote collaborative innovation among cerebrum, cerebellum, body and core component companies, and promote the deep integration of industry.
Many Chinese academics have called for the simultaneous development of humanoid robots' cerebrum (decision making), cerebellum (body control), and body for industrial use.
'Most Chinese robot makers use large language models (LLMs) to develop robotic cerebrum, but the development of their robotic cerebellum remains weak, particularly regarding using camera images to control robotic hands and upper bodies,' said Wang He, an assitant professor at Peking University's Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies (CFCS).
'Some robot makers are still using the decade-old technology of sweeping robots to make humanoid robots,' he added.
Wang said it will take some more years before Chinese robots can significantly improve their cerebrum-cerebellum-body coordination, serve people at home and work in factories.
In April, Beijing hosted the world's first half-marathon for humanoid robots. Twenty-one robots participated in the race, but only six completed the 21-kilometer course.
In May, the China Media Group (CMG) World Robot Competition-Mecha Fighting Series, the first-ever humanoid robot fighting tournament, kicked off in Hangzhou. All four fighters are Unitree G1 robots.
The latest football match between Booster's T1 robots on June 28 also concerned Chinese robots' lower body and self-balancing capability, not their in-hand manipulation ability.
The coming WHRG, organized by the Beijing municipal government, may satisfy some Chinese robot fans and investors, who want to see robots' hands and brains.
The WHRG will include 22 events, including sports, dancing and scenario competitions.
In the scenario competition, humanoid robots will perform factory, hospital, and hotel tasks. In addition, non-humanoid robots will play badminton, table tennis, and basketball.
The other events will still focus on the lower body.
In sports competitions, humanoid robots will compete in seven track-and-field events, including 100 meters, 400 meters, 1500 meters, 4×100 meters relay, 100 meters obstacle race, standing long jump and standing high jump – as well as free gymnastics and 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3and 5 vs 5 football matches.
There will be two dancing competitions for singles and multiple robots.
Making full-body robots are more than 20 companies in China including Unitree, Booster, Xiaomi, Xpeng and Agibot.
Some analysts said these companies know the importance of robotic arms and hands, but prefer to achieve locomotion and lower production costs to boost revenue and market shares. Without revenue growth, they can't raise more funds for further expansion.
Li Chaoyi, head of globalization at Booster Robotics, said in a speech during the Humanoids Summit in London on May 29 that the company now focuses on mobility and robustness, while viewing manipulation (arms and hands) as a modular area where third-party developers can innovate independently.
'We see more and more companies focusing on manipulation, and that part can absolutely be commercialized on its own,' Li said. 'You could have dedicated developers building manipulation agents for different humanoid robots.'
'Our vision is that these modules– like arms – can be plugged into different platforms. The core challenge will be integration with locomotion and balance,' he said.
Li also said Booster's T1 robot now costs US$34,000. He said the company wants to cut costs and reduce prices to below US$10,000 to make the technology accessible to a broader market, including individuals, small startups and universities.
Key robotic arm or dexterous hand makers in China include Elephant Robotics, Inspired Robots and RealMan Robotics.
Read: US Trojan horse alarms pushing China's robots to Europe
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