Humanoid robots in helmets and boxing gloves traded punches and kicks, tumbling to the floor and scrambling back up — among the highlights of last year’s Humanoid Robot Games. A five-a-side football match between robot teams from China’s Tsinghua University and a German squad was another crowd favourite.

The second edition of the games, which opened Saturday, pushes the experiment further, with new events designed to test what humanoid robots can actually do in the real world. More than 30 categories have been added this year, including martial arts, street dance, tug-of-war and weightlifting. While some events last year were staged in mock or simulated environments, this year’s robots are being tested in real settings — fire stations, factories, homes — to gauge their autonomy, adaptability and intelligence.

Even before the opening ceremony, a humanoid robot called Lightning, built by Chinese smartphone maker Honour, made headlines during a rehearsal by completing 100 metres in 9.32 seconds — faster than Usain Bolt’s 9.58-second world record, set at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin. Lightning reached a top speed of 14.5 metres per second. The robot stands 1.69 metres tall, with legs measuring 1.05 metres, Reuters reported.

The five-day competition is being held at Beijing’s National Speed Skating Oval, putting China’s fast-expanding robotics industry on public display. More than 2,000 robots from 666 teams worldwide are competing in 51 events, according to the Global Times — a 138 percent jump in teams from last year, with the number of participating robots nearly quadrupling.

Ahead of the opening ceremony, Reuters photographed dozens of Galbot humanoid robots lined up on the running track, wrapped in red scarves. Images published by the Global Times showed robots dressed in red and silver performing with traditional Chinese drums during the ceremony.

The robots are also producing some of the games’ most entertaining — and revealing — moments precisely because humans are no longer allowed to control them remotely. Without remote guidance, some machines struggled just to stay upright or finish a race. Amanda Yeo, assistant editor at Mashable, reported that one robot lost control while running at high speed, slammed into a blue wall and collapsed with what appeared to be a broken waist.

The mishaps point to a central challenge in humanoid robotics: speed alone isn’t enough. A genuinely capable robot has to know when to slow down, where to stop, and how to move safely.

China’s robotics push

The games follow the World Robot Conference 2026, held in Beijing’s E-Town district from August 19 to 23. More than 300 companies displayed over 2,000 robotics products at the conference, including more than 150 technologies unveiled for the first time, according to the Global Times.

A report released at the conference said China exported more than 40,000 humanoid robots in the first six months of 2026 — a 97 percent share of the global humanoid robot market.

Bikash Gurung, president of the Robotics Association of Nepal and deputy secretary of the International Alliance of Robotics Associations, attended the Beijing conference. He said the scale of China’s humanoid robotics ecosystem gave him a close look at how fast the industry is moving.

“China is now the global leader in this field,” Gurung told Kantipur. “It has a complete supply chain, with motors, sensors, robotic arms and other components all produced within the same ecosystem.”

For countries like Nepal, he said, training skilled technicians should come before importing sophisticated machines. “Bringing in robots alone will not solve anything if we do not have people who can operate, maintain and develop them,” he said. “Robots could be introduced relatively quickly in entertainment, education and tourism.”

Nepal remains at an early stage of humanoid robotics. Most robots built or deployed in the country so far have been software-driven systems or relatively simple animated machines; there has been little progress toward fully autonomous humanoids capable of complex physical tasks.

Some technical colleges and private companies are working on robotics and training, but the sector has yet to become a commercially viable or industrial-scale industry.

Chandra Bilas Bhurtel, secretary general of the Federation of Computer Association Nepal, said Nepal has not yet produced a humanoid robot with internationally competitive finishing and capabilities, though some robots are being developed for industrial automation. “Robots are already being used in factories for tasks such as grading, sorting and moving goods from one place to another without human assistance,” he said. “But robots that can make domestic life easier, or walk and work like humans, have neither been developed nor deployed here.”

Nepal is likely to remain primarily a consumer of robotics technology for now, Bhurtel said, since neighbouring countries benefit from cheaper labour, government incentives and economies of scale. He sees potential applications in Nepal’s difficult terrain, rural transport and disaster response.

“Importing raw materials attracts taxes, and exporting finished products is taxed as well. That makes the cost of producing robotics equipment extremely high,” he said. “Young people and startups are enthusiastic and have innovative ideas, but there is no organised mechanism to help them scale through venture capital.”

Gurung said he is also discussing possible partnerships with Chinese companies to develop specialised robots for monitoring and security in Nepal’s mountainous terrain, mountain tourism destinations and cultural heritage sites.

“The government has yet to fully understand the importance of robotics and the potential of this sector,” he said. “But we have set an ambitious goal of establishing an intelligent robotics industry in Nepal by 2045, and we are working to build the technical understanding needed to get there.”

Participation from South Asian countries in international robotics forums remains limited, he said, while China pursues humanoid robotics aggressively.

The current competition has already been dubbed the “Robot Olympics,” and China is widely expected to dominate the medal table.

From hobby contests to strategic industry

China’s rise in robotics has been decades in the making. Between 1999 and 2014, robot competitions in China were largely small-scale contests involving university students and hobbyists. The sector began drawing far greater national attention after Beijing hosted its first World Robot Conference in 2015. President Xi Jinping later described robotics as the “crown jewel” of advanced manufacturing, helping drive a surge in government investment and strategic support.

China is now pushing humanoid robots far beyond sporting demonstrations. Robots are being developed for hotels, hospitals, factories and logistics, while increasingly sophisticated machines are also being explored for military use.

The robot games, in that sense, are less about entertainment than a public stress test for an industry China hopes will define the next generation of manufacturing.