China closed the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Sunday after three days of competition that drew more than 500 bipedal machines from 280 university and corporate teams representing 16 countries. Staged at the Olympic-era National Speed Skating Oval, the event awarded 26 gold medals across track-and-field, football, martial arts, dance and real-world tasks such as hotel cleaning and medical sorting. Organisers said the tournament, which charged spectators 128–580 yuan ($18–81), generated valuable data for improving robots’ balance, battery life and collaborative decision-making. Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics dominated the sports programme, securing four titles. Its H1 model set a robot record of 6 minutes 34 seconds in the 1,500-metre run and won the 400 metres, 100-metre obstacle race and 4×100-metre relay, the latter in 1 minute 48 seconds. A separate standing high-jump contest produced a 0.95-metre leap, while an autonomous Tiangong robot claimed the 100-metre dash in 21.50 seconds after a scoring multiplier that rewarded fully self-directed operation. Beyond the spectacle of robots tumbling in football scrums or collapsing mid-sprint, the games underscored Beijing’s ambition to build a world-class humanoid-robotics industry by 2027. Analysts say China is investing billions of dollars in embodied AI as it competes with the United States for leadership in advanced technologies and seeks labour-saving solutions for an ageing population. Organisers plan to hold a second edition next year, signalling that the ‘robot Olympics’ could become a recurring proving ground for the sector’s rapid technical gains.