The Chinese capital is hosting the record-breaking World Humanoid Robot Games, which are being held at the iconic National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing. This year's edition of the competition features an impressive 2,056 humanoids, representing 666 teams from 16 countries, including the United States, Germany, Japan, Brazil and hosts China.
The largest delegation is expected to be the organizing country, which is deploying 641 teams with a total of 1,975 robots. Behind their development are 157 high-tech companies, as well as nearly 200 leading research institutes and universities.
The organizers have significantly expanded the program, setting a total of 51 disciplines and over 1,300 individual matches. For comparison, in last year's tournament there were only 26 competitions, and the number of participants - four times less. Debuting on the sports calendar are disciplines such as table tennis, weightlifting, long jump and tug of war.
In order to encourage engineers to make new technological breakthroughs, the organizers introduced drastic changes to the regulations. Remote control by an operator is now completely prohibited in most track and field disciplines, requiring full autonomy of the machines. In addition, the maximum allowable time for overcoming the 100-meter sprint was reduced threefold - from three minutes to just one.
In addition to pure sports competitions, competitions with simulated real environments have been increased from six to 21. The humanoids are tested in nine specially recreated areas, including hotels, production workshops, libraries and retail outlets. They test the precise fine-motor coordination of anthropomorphic machines, tasking them with tasks such as wiring and precise assembly of tools.
According to Jiang Guangji, director of the Beijing Municipal Administration of Economy and Information Technology, the ultimate goal is for these machines to quickly move from the sports arena directly into the real economy and factory floors, turning the medals they win into real production orders.