On the outskirts of Beijing, younger Chinese entrepreneur Cheng Hao sits on an indoor soccer pitch – however this turf isn’t for people. It’s the place engineers working for his start-up, Booster Robotics, prepare human-like robots to play soccer utilizing synthetic intelligence – dribbling, passing, taking pictures and blocking.
Cheng, a 37-year-old Beijinger, is on the vanguard of China’s decade-long push into humanoid robot know-how.
He based the corporate in 2023, impressed by the discharge of Tesla’s first humanoid Optimus and the then-groundbreaking ChatGPT-4, and needs to develop the world’s most superior soccer-playing humanoids.
“There are hundreds of robot soccer teams in the world,” he instructed NCS. “We need to be the first one in this niche market and then go to other markets.”
China’s robot business has accelerated since 2015, when the federal government listed robotics as one of many 10 sectors in a blueprint for upgrading Chinese industries and shedding its popularity because the world’s cheap-labor manufacturing unit.
Today, the nation has over 150 humanoid robot firms, and this quantity is steadily rising, in response to officers.
For many robot start-ups like Cheng’s, sports have develop into a testing floor – a strategy to showcase robotic capabilities and discover real-world functions.
That led to a growth in robot sporting occasions throughout China in 2025. Dozens of robots danced collectively on stage on the Spring Festival Gala – the nation’s largest annual selection present; humanoids ran their first half-marathon; and Beijing hosted the world’s first Humanoid Robot Games, which put machines by their paces in soccer, boxing, martial arts and different sports.
This robot sports craze comes as humanoid robots emerge as a key entrance of China’s international tech competitors with the US and different nations. China’s not solely racing to take advantage of the market’s multibillion-dollar potential, however to spice up productiveness in a rustic with a quickly ageing workforce.
When NCS met Cheng in the corporate’s lab, engineers had been fine-tuning their robots: one robot was suspended from a rope connected to the ceiling as an engineer used a distant management to make it leap and land, to check its stability.
Another engineer guided a robot because it walked round a mini-size indoor soccer area, usually pausing to carefully examine its parts.
The workforce at Booster Robotics was making ready for RoboCup, a significant worldwide match then simply days away that will check the robots’ use of synthetic intelligence to play a recreation.
Soccer has lengthy been acknowledged as a benchmark job for scientists to check robots. The earliest testing passed off in the Nineteen Nineties, which led to the delivery of the primary RoboCup video games later that decade in Nagoya, Japan. It’s now an annual occasion.
Peter Stone, a earlier president of the competitors and a professor of pc science on the University of Texas at Austin, stated robot soccer requires many “fundamental capabilities,” together with movement, imaginative and prescient, localization, collaborative strategic planning, and adversarial reasoning.
“An inspirational goal of RoboCup is to create a team of robots that can beat the best human soccer team on a real soccer field,” stated Stone, who can be the chief scientist of Sony AI. “I sometimes compare it to challenges like landing a man on the moon. It is an ambitious technological challenge that can only be accomplished with the help of progress in science and engineering.”
Cheng’s obsession with soccer-playing robots started early. He grew up watching soccer and fell in love with robots in highschool. His undergraduate research included tips on how to prepare robots to play soccer.
But now, Cheng is trying past that. “We think robots playing soccer is a test. We test a lot of technologies in the soccer game, but in the future, we will use this technology in factories or at homes,” he stated.
Robot sports are additionally a great way to draw consideration and funding.
Behind China’s robot sports push
An exhibition robot soccer league, held by Booster Robotics one weekend in June, drew on-line livestreaming from China’s state broadcaster, and sponsorship from manufacturers starting from e-sports and liquor to a kids’s bodily coaching heart. More than 700 tickets had been bought at $15 apiece.
By the tip of final July, the corporate introduced over $14 million in Series A+ financing – solely two days after it gained the championship on the 2025 RoboCup in Brazil.
“It (robot soccer) is a show,” stated Cheng. “But like a show in Las Vegas, it can earn a lot of money, then we can hire more talents to develop our algorithms for future real-world uses.”
Like the expansion of electrical automobiles and different high-tech industries, the Chinese authorities has performed an instrumental function in galvanizing the nation’s robot growth.
Li Shi, Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese Association of Automation, has been organizing home robot sports video games for many years.
“Whether it’s Beijing, Shanghai, or even more so in Shenzhen, the government is more involved, and with significant investment and extensive media coverage, the influence of robot sports has expanded tremendously,” stated Li, who additionally presides over RoboCup’s junior-level video games in China.
In 2021, the Chinese authorities launched a five-year blueprint for its robot business, outlining a variety of economic incentives together with increased subsidies, tax cuts for analysis, and simpler loans.
“The next five years and beyond represent a strategic period of opportunity for China’s robot industry to achieve self-reliance and technological leapfrogging,” the plan said.
That explains why final August, China launched the World Humanoid Robots Games, co-hosted by the Beijing municipal authorities, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, and the World Robot Cooperation Organization.
The Games included a 100m relay race, boxing occasions and soccer matches, and extra sensible competitions, the place robots competed in pace exams to see which could kind and deal with supplies the quickest in simulated factories and drug shops. Hundreds of firms from 16 nations took half – most had been from China.
A district-level authorities additionally held a robot half-marathon final April that was broadcast reside on dozens of massive screens throughout the town, together with pre-game exhibits for firms to showcase their robots and entice funding.
But in time the business desires to indicate that it may well thrive with out authorities backing.
“At this point, we are still very much depending on government support, whether it’s financial backing, efforts to raise visibility, or amplify influence on the broader society,” stated Li. “In the long term, (robot sports games) should aim at becoming self-sustaining.”
Scientists have extra work to do if sports robots are to beat human athletes. At Beijing’s World Humanoid Robot Games, one robot crashed right into a human operator, whereas one other made an sudden 90-degree flip to collide with the referee seats. Boxing robots incessantly missed their punches, and the humanoids stored employees busy by incessantly falling over on the soccer pitch.
But for contributors, that’s a part of the method. Li, additionally a robot researcher on the Chinese Academy of Sciences, stated exposing flaws is essential to assist builders to enhance the applied sciences and make the robots extra succesful.
Robot or human? Chinese humanoid causes on-line stir
In March 2025, the federal government included “intelligent robots” in its annual work report for the primary time, because it seeks to speed up robot adoption.
Companies are on the identical web page. Leju and X-humanoid, whose robots ran in a number of competitions, are each testing their merchandise in factories to deal with and kind supplies. Humanoids of Unitree, which danced and boxed, are doing the identical exams whereas additionally being deployed in different eventualities resembling industrial inspection.
Globally, the development is comparable. According to Morgan Stanley analysis launched final August, the humanoid robot business has shifted its focus away from showcasing technical capabilities to exploring real-world adoption and increasing functions.
For occasion, the humanoids of each Boston Dynamics and Tesla have been examined for manufacturing unit logistics. Elon Musk even reportedly instructed a shareholder assembly in November that Tesla’s Optimus may have the ability to comply with individuals round to stop them from committing crimes – as “a more humane form of containment of future crime.”
The idea inevitably raised considerations about surveillance, civil liberties, and the way a robot would intervene if its topic moved to interrupt the legislation.
Cheng and his start-up don’t need to be left behind in the race to create robots able to sensible functions. Just three months after NCS’s summer time go to, the corporate launched a kid-size robot on October 24, aimed toward broader public makes use of.
“They are no longer just tools that can only perform tasks. What we see instead are ‘intelligent agents’ with their own specialized skills,” Cheng instructed tons of of journalists, buyers and enterprise companions on the launch.
“They could be a workout companion that walks and runs with you, a home tutor that can converse with children, and a soccer player sprinting across the pitch,” he stated. Users could additionally program them for different makes use of, he added.
At the early stage of exploring robots’ varied makes use of, start-ups throughout China are carving out their very own niches to keep away from being squeezed out of an already-crowded market. The objective is similar: to persuade extra customers to purchase their humanoids.
As Cheng spoke, the large display screen behind him flashed: “Limited-time offer, starting from 29,900 yuan ($4,200).” This is a number of occasions cheaper than its earlier exclusively-for-soccer robot, eliciting applause from the group.
The Chinese entrepreneur wrapped up his speech with a name to motion that could see humanoid robots deployed in each future family.
“Let’s make humanoid robots as simple, reliable, and practical as personal computers.”