Robots compete in martial arts at 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games

Robots of various shapes and sizes competed in the martial arts event, showcasing their flexibility and coordination at the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games, which kicked off on Thursday in Beijing.

The games feature 280 teams from 16 countries, including the United States, Germany and Italy, competing from Friday to Sunday at the National Speed Skating Oval.

Competitors participate in 26 events, spanning athletic challenges such as running, long jump, free exercises, and football, as well as skills-based tasks like moving materials, sorting drugs, and cleaning across different scenarios.

At the martial arts event of the Games on Friday, robots of various shapes and heights took the stage, performing martial arts moves such as Changquan, or long fist boxing, and classic Tai Chi movements.

"Our robot is small and agile. Compared with larger robots, it can't easily perform flips, but it's much more stable," said Ji Aixu, from a competing team of the event.

The martial arts competition event of the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games requires robots to begin and end with the "fist and palm" salute, a Chinese tradition performed to greet or show respect.

The participant teams are required to choose from 20 designated martial arts moves, choreograph their own performance, select background music, and prepare props. Each robot had two chances to perform, with each routine limited to a 10-minute duration.

The final scores were based on four criteria, namely completion, quality, overall performance, and technical execution.

"Robots can't yet fully execute lower-body martial arts movements like horse stance or bow stance. But seeing them perform elements of Wing Chun Kung Fu and a standard martial arts salute so beautifully within such a short time is truly impressive," said Zhang Jidong, an arbitration committee member and technical representative for the martial arts event of the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games.

In the end, the robot developed by PNDbotics AI Co., Ltd. stood out among the four competing teams and emerged as the champion, thanks to its outstanding agile joint control and smooth martial arts movements.

"In the future, we would further enhance the robots' full-body coordination and flexibility, making their movements smoother and more human-like," said Liang Qijun, brand director of the company.

Robots compete in martial arts at 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games

The U.S. State Department announced Wednesday that it is pausing immigrant visa processing from 75 countries.

The measure will apply to "countries whose migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates. The freeze will remain active until the U.S. can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people," the department said on X.

The pause impacts countries including Somalia, Haiti, Iran and Eritrea, "whose immigrants often become public charges on the United States upon arrival," said the State Department.

Earlier on Wednesday, the department announced in a memo that it would suspend visa processing for 75 countries, including Somalia, Russia, Afghanistan, Brazil, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, Thailand and Yemen, according to a Fox News report.

The pause will begin Jan. 21 and will continue indefinitely until the department conducts a reassessment of visa processing, the report said. The move came after the White House announced on Tuesday that it is ending temporary protected status for Somali immigrants amid fraud allegations in Minnesota.

On Monday, the State Department announced on social media that it had revoked over 100,000 visas since U.S. President Donald Trump took office nearly a year ago.

In November 2025, Trump announced his intention to permanently suspend immigration from what he described as "Third World countries", following the death of a National Guard member after being shot near the White House by an Afghan national.

U.S. freezes immigrant visa processing from 75 countries