China began this Friday (15) to the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing as part of a strategy to display their advances in artificial and robotic intelligence. Lasting three days, the event brings together 280 teams from 16 countries, including the United States, Germany and Brazil.
While entertaining audiences with robots playing football and table tennis, the initiative has a greater ambition: training coordination and autonomy skills for future industrial and social applications, given the aging of the Chinese population and the global cutting -edge race, especially against the US.
Competitions include sports challenges such as 1,500 meters running, and functional tests such as medical handling, cleaning tasks and factory work simulation.
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Legacy Card: Far beyond a service
During the games, falls and failures were frequent, especially in football matches, where humanoids collided, overturned and demanded human assistance. Still, many managed to get up alone, receiving applause from the public, which paid from 128 to 580 yuans (about $ 97 to $ 440) per ticket.
More than a show
Organizers argue that the event serves as a platform for experimentation and data collection for real applications. The movement of robots in the field, for example, simulates coordination between autonomous units in industrial assembly lines.
Of the 280 teams, 192 represent universities and 88 come from the private sector, including Chinese companies such as Unite, Fourier Intelligence and Booster Robotics, suppliers of the models used by almost all participants.
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Billions at stake
Games are part of a series of events organized by China to accelerate the development of humanoid robots, with strong government incentive. Beijing has already held, this year, the one that called the world’s first marathon of humanoid robots, a national robotics conference and inaugurated specialty stores in retail robots.
According to a report by Morgan Stanley, the public at the robotics conferences in China has grown significantly in recent months, signaling that interest in incorporated intelligence goes beyond the high levels of the government and begins to mobilize society.
Solid investment happens as China seeks automated solutions to deal with the scarcity of labor caused by the aging of the population and wants to occupy global protagonism in the race for disruptive technologies, especially in a growing competition scenario with the United States.
