(28 Jun 2025)
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Beijing – 28 June 2025
1. Various of robots from THU Robotics at Tsinghua University competing with Mountain Sea from China Agricultural University on soccer field
2. Zoom in on robot kicking ball
3. Wide of robot scoring goal
4. Wide of field
5. Various of match
6. Audience watching game
7. Robot falling while running and standing up independently
9. Tilt down of match
10. Wide of robot falling, staff member pulling others away to avoid collision
11. Robot running and falling
12. Robots being carried off field with stretcher
13. Various of children in audience
14. Various of robots during shooting practice
15. Wide of Cheng Hao, founder and CEO of Booster Robotics, speaking
15. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Cheng Hao, founder and CEO of Booster Robotics:
“In the future, we may arrange for robots to play football with humans. That means we must ensure the robots are completely safe. For example, a robot and a human could play a match where winning doesn’t matter, but real offensive and defensive interactions take place. That would help audiences build trust and understand that robots are safe.”
16. Various of robots during match
17. Various of team officials watching game from sidelines
18. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Chen (No first name given), Beijing resident:
“We’re living in an AI-driven society, and our country’s science and innovation are advancing rapidly. I just wanted my daughter to see these robots developed by brilliant university students and feel the excitement firsthand.”
19. Wide of venue and audience area
20. Close of a spectator’s phone screen showing game
21. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Wu (No first name given), Beijing resident:
“They (THU Robotics) did really well. But the Mountain Sea team was also impressive. They brought a lot of surprises.”
22. Various of robots during match
23. Fallen robot standing up and walking away
STORYLINE:
Four teams of humanoid robots faced off in a fully autonomous 3-on-3 soccer match powered entirely by artificial intelligence in Beijing on Saturday night.
Touted as China’s first 3-on-3 soccer game between humanoid robots, the event served as a preview for the upcoming World Humanoid Robot Games, set to take place in Beijing this August.
According to the organizers, a key highlight of the match was that all participating robots operated fully autonomously using AI-driven strategies—without any human intervention or supervision.
Equipped with advanced visual sensors, the robots were able to identify the ball and navigate the field.
They were also designed to stand up on their own after falling.
However, during the match, several still had to be carried off the field on stretchers by staff.
China is stepping up efforts to develop AI-powered humanoid robots, using sports competitions like marathons, boxing, and football as a real-world proving ground.
Cheng Hao, founder and CEO of Booster Robotics, the company that supplied the robot players, said sports competitions offer the ideal testing ground for humanoid robots, helping to accelerate the development of both algorithms and integrated hardware-software systems.
He also emphasized safety as a core concern in the application of humanoid robots.
“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.
Among the crowd was Ms. Chen, who brought her elementary school-aged daughter to experience the event in person.
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