Over 500 robots competed in soccer, boxing, and running. In many cases, gravity was the real winner. This week, China’s leading robotics minds gathered in Beijing for a hotly-anticipated, Olympics-style event dubbed the world’s first “ Humanoid Robot Games. ”

A video (top) features some of the robots in action on the first day. A running contest, for example, shows several of the bipedal-bots racing along a track at impressive speed, although one of the competitors clearly has trouble sticking to its lane.

The ongoing 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games are part competition, part carnival. They are a stage on which intelligent machines from around the world demonstrate their skills in events ranging from football to high jump.