Two humanoid robots face off in a ring in the world's first humanoid robot kick-boxing competition.
The high-tech robots from a Chinese robotics firm jab and kick each other, and spring back onto their feet after being knocked down.
While not exactly on par with professional human kickboxers, it's an impressive display of agility and balance.
The show in May came after yet another "world first", as Chinese state media called it, when humanoid robots jogged alongside thousands of half-marathon runners in Beijing in April.
Then there was the humanoid robot display during a Spring Festival Gala event, when a group of bots dressed in red and white costume vests performed a routine alongside dancers on stage.
State-run media and robotics companies in China have been celebrating advances in the capabilities of humanoid robots — robots that look human with arms and legs — as companies from China compete with robot developers from the United States.
Humanoid robots were seen to have so much potential in part because they could adapt to the world as it was, said Alan Burden, a PhD in design robotics.
"There's also a cultural element which is very evident in a lot of science fiction — humanoids are compelling because they remind us of ourselves, which makes them easier to imagine in daily life, even if the technical reality is still catching up," said Dr Burden.
Jeff Cardenas, chief executive of US robotics company Apptronik, called it "the space race of our time".
"I do think this will be a global race and I do think it will be important for us to really compete and win," he said.
Beijing invests billions
While it's a race the US has been leading, China has been catching up.
Beijing unveiled a national plan in 2023 to build a world-class humanoid robotics industry by 2027, part of President Xi Jinping's tech-led vision for the economy that includes electric vehicles, renewable energy and artificial intelligence.
In March, the Chinese government announced it would set up a one trillion yuan ($214 billion) fund to support startups in areas such as AI and robotics.
Experts say advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology are helping take the technology to the next level.
Chinese humanoid robot startup MagicLab chief executive Wu Changzheng told Reuters it was using new home-grown AI models like DeepSeek, Qwen and ByteDance's Doubao.
"DeepSeek has been helpful in task reasoning and comprehension, contributing to the development of our robots' 'brains,'" Mr Wu told Reuters.
This is despite the US attempting to restrict China's access to the best computer chips essential to training AI models.
Claude Sammut, a computer science and engineering professor from the University of New South Wales, said China's clearest advantage was its domination of the manufacturing supply chain that makes the hardware.
"You can find everything you need in certain industrial hubs, so that's why they've been able to drive the cost down," said Professor Sammut.
In 2024, 31 Chinese companies unveiled 36 new humanoid models, versus only eight released by US companies that same year, according to a Morgan Stanley report published this year.
"Our research suggests China continues to show the most impressive progress in humanoid robotics where startups are benefiting from established supply chains, local adoption opportunities, and strong degrees of national government support," said the report.
The potential of humanoid robots to transform economies and societies is expected to be huge.
Beijing is aiming for a new industrial revolution where many factory tasks would be performed by humanoid robots.
Despite concerns about the impact on jobs, Beijing sees the technology as key to plugging labour shortages in other areas as well.
They include elderly care where demand is increasing as China's 1.4 billion population ages.
'Warm and friendly and approachable'
In Australia, robotics company Andromeda Robotics has created a humanoid robot called Abi to work in aged care facilities.
Andromeda co-founder mechatronics engineer Grace Brown started Abi during the pandemic, when she found herself isolated and lonely during lockdowns in Melbourne and watching lots of Disney and Pixar movies.
"At the time I wanted to build something that was very much like a Pixar character, one that's warm and friendly and approachable.
"That was the inception for Abi."
Ms Brown believes humanoid robots, companion robots like Abi, will redefine relationships in future.
"The vision that we've always believed that was inevitable is that in the future, every single person, in every single continent, is going to have access to their own personal, home companion robot."
And it's not long until humanoid robots have a breakthrough moment.
"That's going to be like the iPhone or a ChatGPT moment for humanoid robots.
"And it's very near."
'Technical reality still catching up'
Despite the predictions, some believe humanoid robots still have a long way to go before they become part of everyday life.
While robots have demonstrated multiple skills such as sorting objects, cleaning, lifting, and recent advances in artificial intelligence have improved the degree of autonomy in humanoid robots, there is a lot robots still can't do.
Even basic physical tasks have yet to be mastered by some of the most advanced humanoids, like Tesla's Optimus.
"For example, it takes Optimus almost 10 seconds to put an egg into an egg cooker," explained a US government report from October 2024.
Professor Sammut said the robot demonstrations in China had mostly been "flashy demos to show off the hardware".
He said the biggest recent improvements in humanoid robots had been in "reinforcement learning".
In the past it had been difficult to hand program robots to do "fancy" things like boxing, but now robots could be taught, he explained.
This would make humanoid robots useful in the home because robots could learn by themselves.
US tech billionaire Brett Adcock has said the aim for humanoid robot developers is for people to be able to talk to robots who can then implement requested tasks.
"The end-state for this is you really want the default UI [user interface] to be speech," said Mr Adcock, founder of robotics company Figure AI, which is building a general-purpose humanoid robot.
Developers were also using generative AI to enable humanoid robots to better understand requests, then create plans to complete tasks, explained Professor Sammut.
"There's still a fair bit of work to do on that because the generative models can produce stuff that isn't necessarily true," he added.
Professor Sammut said economics and cost was another major barrier.
"Right now, I don't see robots coming down to, like, the price of a phone," he said.
"So it's more like buying a car than buying a phone."
Who will cross the finish line?
Despite investments from China, Robert Potter, a visiting fellow with Australian National University and a cyber security expert, said there were good reasons the democratic world "has the edge" in the humanoid robot race.
Mr Potter, co-founder of an advisory firm which worked with the United States Defense Department, said China mostly copied innovations.
"Areas where they have done well such as camera-based AI and surveillance are areas where the state is a larger market in China than in the democratic world," he added.
Professor Sammut questioned whether humanoid robots more broadly would ever fulfil their promise.
"Really the big question is, how useful are they going to be?" he asked.
"It's really not quite clear what the end goal is, because [industry] is producing this great looking technology but exactly how they can be deployed, people are still working it out."
Dr Burden said humanoid robots were probably at the peak of inflated expectations in the "hype cycle".
"The next few years will show whether that hype turns into usefulness or evolves into another type of emerging technology," he said.
ABC/Reuters
