Beijing hosted China’s first fully autonomous humanoid-robot football tournament on 28 June, when four teams of three child-sized Booster T1 robots competed at the Smart Esports Competition Center. The identically built machines relied on on-board sensors and artificial-intelligence algorithms to locate the ball, coordinate tactics and attempt self-recovery after falls, with no human controls or remote supervision. Tsinghua University’s THU Robotics side beat China Agricultural University’s Mountain Sea team 5–3 to claim the RoBoLeague title, while two other university squads reached the semi-finals. The 20-minute matches offered a public stress test for embodied AI: robots demonstrated agile kicking and balance, but several still required stretchers after tumbling, underscoring the technical and safety challenges that remain. Organisers billed the event as a dress rehearsal for the World Humanoid Robot Games, set for 15–17 August in the capital, where 11 robot sports are planned. Booster Robotics, which supplied the hardware, says sporting competitions accelerate software-hardware integration and safety protocols it hopes will eventually allow robots to play alongside humans. The showcase comes as China channels tens of billions of dollars into robotics; Morgan Stanley estimates the domestic market could more than double to about $108 billion by 2028.