(Yicai) Aug. 15 -- Dubbed the “Humanoid Robot Olympics,” the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games is underway in Beijing in which androids are competing across 26 events, testing their athletic, performative, applied, and human-interaction capabilities.

More than 500 humanoid robots in 280 teams from 16 countries will take part in the games being staged at the National Speed Skating Oval, which hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics, according to the organizers. The opening ceremony was held yesterday, and the games run from today through Aug. 17.

Leading Chinese robot firms, including Unitree Robotics, Songyan Power Beijing Technology, Accelerated Evolution, Fourier, and Zhuoyide, are present, with the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center participating in 16 events, the most among participating teams. Top academic institutions, such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, are also taking part. 

Participants have also come from the United States, Germany, Australia, Japan, and 11 other countries.

Robots will compete in four major categories: competitive (traditional sports), scenario (real-world applications), performance (dance and martial arts), and exhibition (exploration of the boundaries of human-robot interaction and technology). Each event entails a number of sub-events. 

The organizing committee will tally scores based on the results the robots achieve in different contests to determine the final rankings and the gold medallists.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev