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China's humanoid robot football descends into chaos as bots are stretched from the pitch

An AI powered football tournament filled with robots stumbling and fumbling as they dash towards the ball has descended into chaos the event is a preview for the upcoming World Humanoid Robot Games

Chinas football tournament for humanoid robots has descended into chaos the clumsy mechanical humanoids stumbled and fumbled towards the ball as they mindlessly rammed into each other in an attempt to score a goal.

After the bionic ballers endured a brutal battering in a game filled with fouls, stretchers were whipped out to escort the bots off the pitch. The AI powered game, taking place in Chinas capital on Saturday night, was a preview for the upcoming World Humanoid Robot Games, set to take place in Beijing.

Four teams of humanoid robots went head-to-head in a series of fully autonomous 3-on-3 soccer matches. The games powered fully by artificial intelligence. Organisers of the event stated a key aspect of the match was all participating robots operated fully autonomously as they hit the pitch.

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The match was a preview for the upcoming World Humanoid Robot Games(Image: China News Service via Getty Ima)

While on the pitch the robots executed AI-driven strategies without any human intervention or supervision during the game and operated completely independently aside from a few interventions from the referee.

The robots were equipped with visual sensors and were able to identify the ball from other robots.

Not only were the bots able to sprint towards the ball but were also capable of standing themselves up after a fall quickly and efficiently a trait which is rare even amongst some human football players.

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The robots were able to stand up on their own but stretches were still used to take the players off the pitch to add a degree of realism (Image: China News Service via Getty Ima)

Despite the robots being able to stand up after a fall, organisers decided to carry the robots off of the field in stretches at the end of the match to add a level of realism to the event. Cheng Hao, founder and CEO of Booster Robotics, revealed the company the company provided the hardware for all four university teams' players providing the robots.

The four university's research team's embedded their own algorithms for perception, decision-making, player formations, and passing strategies for the robots to execute of thee game.

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Aside from a few intentions from the ref the robots acted 100% independently (Image: China News Service via Getty Ima)

The various algorithms used to autonomously control the robots took into account various factors such as speed, force, and direction.

In the future, we may arrange for robots to play football with humans. That means we must ensure the robots are completely safe, Cheng said. For example, a robot and a human could play a match where winning doesnt matter, but real offensive and defensive interactions take place. That would help audiences build trust and understand that robots are safe, CEO of Booster Robotics Cheng said.

In the final match, Tsinghua Universitys THU Robotics emerged victorious against the China Agricultural Universitys Mountain Sea team with a score of 53 to win the championship.

[Teams using autonomous T1 robots from Booster Robotics compete in the inaugural RoBoLeague robot soccer competition held in Beijing, Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)]

These bots have gone football crazy(Image: AP)

They (THU) did really well, he said. But the Mountain Sea team (of Agricultural University) was also impressive. They brought a lot of surprises, the supporter said.

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