Overview

• More than 500 bipedal machines from 280 teams across 16 countries competed in 26 events at Beijing’s National Speed Skating Oval, ranging from soccer and kickboxing to medicine sorting and cleaning.
• Chinese companies dominated the podium, with Unitree’s H1 taking multiple golds including the 1,500 meters, while Beijing’s X‑Humanoid logged a strong medal haul in sprinting and factory‑style tasks.
• The contests highlighted progress in locomotion and coordination but also frequent falls, breakdowns and battery swaps, with many entries requiring human operators and lacking higher‑level planning.
• A safety incident drew attention when a running robot veered into and knocked down a human on the track, with no serious injury reported.
• Officials emphasized data collection and networked control trials, including a 5G‑A setup by China Unicom, as part of a state‑backed push that includes recent subsidies and a proposed one‑trillion‑yuan fund for AI and robotics.