The RoBoLeague World Robot Soccer League will hold its final competition in Beijing on Saturday, showcasing autonomous humanoid robots in a cutting-edge event that merges artificial intelligence with the thrill of competitive sports.
As the first test competition for the upcoming inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games, the 3-on-3 humanoid robot football match will take place in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, widely known as the Yizhuang Development Zone.
Following rounds of fierce qualifying games, four Chinese teams of humanoid robot footballers have been selected to take part in the finals on Saturday evening.
On Thursday, teams from Tsinghua University and Beijing Information Science and Technology University hit the pitch to demonstrate their robot players' football prowess during a pre-competition training session.
The finals' rules stipulated that each team consist of three players and one substitute, with each match comprising two 10-minute halves and a 5-minute break.
The matchup unfolded without any help from human controllers, as the two-legged robot players accurately kicked, ran after, moved around, and jostled for the ball, despite their slightly wobbly movement.
"The World Robot Soccer League will be the first test competition for the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games and China's first-ever 3-versus-3 AI humanoid robot football match as well, which will put the participating robots' endurance and agility to the test," Dou Jing, an organizer for the RoBoLeagueWorld Robot Soccer League, told China Central Television (CCTV) in an interview Thursday.
According to Wang Yonghao, who is in charge of the operations of Saturday's competition, said the robots are equipped with sensors that enable them to nimbly maneuver on the pitch and the rules have specified the use of colors to minimize disturbance for the competition.
"At present, all the visual recognition and positioning abilities of the robot are accomplished through optical cameras. For instance, during the football match, it needs to first identify a white, round ball, or an object of a similar size. Then we make sure that the color white or any other similar color will not appear on the robots' feet, on the body of the on-site staff and referees, including their shoes or other objects on them," he told CCTV.
The fully autonomous soccer bots have been trained with deep reinforcement learning, which gives them humanlike agility and enables them to better sense and react to their surroundings, without the need for human control.
"The robot should be able to see the football nearly 20 meters away at an accuracy rate of over 90 percent. First, it should be able to tell what or where the ball, the goal, or the pitch is, and afterward it needs to make decisions about the role it is going to play based on all these inputs. The following step would be to kick the ball and try to score a goal. All these are the technological challenges we aim to address at the moment. Of course, as the technology evolves, all these capabilities can be achieved for the robot now," said Cheng Hao, founder and CEO of Beijing-based Booster Robotics.
Beijing will host the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games from Aug 15 to 17, as part of the larger World Robot Conference. It will be the first global sporting event dedicated solely to humanoid robots.
Fully autonomous soccer robots gear up for Beijing showdown in futuristic finale
A new round of trade-in subsidy program is energizing China's consumer market these days, with provinces across the country seeing a surge in demand for cars, home appliances and digital devices.
In north China's Shanxi Province, the new trade-in subsidy program, which started on January 9, has further helped boost sales in home appliances and digital devices which are covered by the new round of subsidies.
To enjoy the subsidies, six types of home appliances, including refrigerators and washing machines, must meet national Level 1 energy-efficiency or water-efficiency standards. Digital and smart products include four types, such as mobile phones and tablets, with a sales price cap of 6,000 yuan (about 800 U.S. dollars) per item.
In both categories, subsidies are set at 15 percent of the final transaction price. For home appliances, the maximum subsidy is 1,500 yuan per item. For digital products, the cap is 500 yuan per item. Each consumer can receive a subsidy for one unit in each category.
Neighboring Shanxi, Hebei Province kicked off the year of 2026 with the new round of trade-in subsidy program starting on January 1.
The subsidies cover automobiles, home appliances, and digital products. Individual consumers who purchase designated Level 1 energy-efficiency appliances or eligible digital products priced at no more than 6,000 yuan can receive subsidies equal to 15 percent of the transaction price. The maximum subsidy is 1,500 yuan per appliance and 500 yuan per digital or smart device, with each person limited to one subsidized item in each category.
Data showed that from Jan 1 to 9, Hebei's home appliance trade-in program alone disbursed more than 130 million yuan in subsidies, driving sales of over 920 million yuan.
In east China's Jiangsu Province, the new trade-in subsidy program, taking effect for two weeks, has brought the province a boom in trade-in.
At a local 4S store in Jiangsu's Suqian City, showroom traffic has spiked as salespeople walked customers through the new benefits from the trade-in subsidy program.
"Under the scrappage-and-replacement scheme, customers who buy a new energy vehicle (NEV) can receive a subsidy worth 12 percent of the vehicle price, capped at 20,000 yuan (about 2,860 U.S. dollars). For combustion-engine cars, the subsidy is 10 percent, with an upper limit of 15,000 yuan. For trade-ins, NEVs are able to receive a subsidy worth 8 percent of the vehicle price, up to 15,000 yuan, while combustion-engine cars will receive a 6-percent subsidy, with a cap of 13,000 yuan," said Sun Yue, a saleswoman at the store.
In the home appliance sector, Jiangsu's policy this year stipulates that only products that meet China's Level 1 energy-efficiency standard are eligible for subsidies. The scheme covers six major categories, including refrigerators and washing machines.
Consumers who purchase qualifying appliances can receive a subsidy equal to 15 percent of the final retail price, up to a maximum of 1,500 yuan per item. Each person is limited to one subsidized unit per product category.
Four types of digital and smart products, such as mobile phones and tablets, are eligible for a 15-percent subsidy capped at 500 yuan per unit, with a retail price no more than 6,000 yuan.
"With the national subsidy policy back in place this year, I went to the store to check what discounts I could get. It knocked 500 yuan off the price. [The discounted price is] very reasonable," said Wang Kang, a resident of Jiangsu's Xuzhou Province.
To enhance the shopping experience for consumers, many retailers are pairing subsidies with "one-stop" services that combine the delivery of new products with on-site collection of old ones.
"After consumers place an order for new home appliances, our staff will schedule a time to pick up the old units. Recycling the old appliance can also further offset the purchase price of the new one," said Yang Jie, a sales supervisor at a major home appliance company.
China's new trade-in program sparks consumption boom
