Overview

• More than 500 humanoid robots from roughly 16 countries are competing in 280 teams across 26 events at Beijing’s National Speed Skating Oval through August 17.
• Events cover traditional sports like football, athletics, boxing and table tennis alongside functional trials such as medication sorting, material handling and hotel cleaning.
• Many robots have toppled or collided, often requiring human assistance to be reset, while others have autonomously righted themselves to the crowd’s applause.
• Organizers avoid national medal tallies and instead emphasize task-oriented benchmarks and real-time performance data to drive research in locomotion, coordination and decision-making.
• Backed by massive R&D funding and government support, the Games illustrate China’s strategy to translate lab advances into commercial humanoid robotics for manufacturing, logistics and service sectors.