Robots compete in China's first AI football match: Guess what? There are injuries!

Dubai: Imagine a football match where the players are fully autonomous AI-powered robots. Now imagine those same robots getting injured mid-game. As unbelievable as it sounds, these scenes unfolded in China, where the country recently hosted its first AI-driven robot football tournament in Beijing.

The 2025 RoBoLeague Robot Football Tournament featured four teams competing in a 3-on-3 format—completely free of human intervention or supervision. Equipped with cutting-edge visual sensors, the robots could identify the ball, navigate the pitch, and strategize in real time.

Despite the technological sophistication, two robots had to be carried off the field after collapsing during play, requiring human assistance—the first such incident in a fully AI-controlled humanoid football match.

Cheng Hao, CEO of Booster Robotics—the company behind the robot hardware—stated that events like these accelerate the pace of development in robotics. He also noted that enabling robots to play safely alongside humans in the future could help build public confidence in humanoid technology.

While Booster Robotics supplied the physical robots, university research teams created their own AI systems to handle perception, decision-making, and in-game strategy.

Strengthens development of robots

The championship title went to the THU Robotics team from Tsinghua University. China Agricultural University’s Mountain Sea team finished second, while the Blaze team from Beijing Information Science and Technology University and the Power team from Tsinghua University's Future Laboratory shared third place.

Bian Yuansong, chairman of Shangyicheng Group—the organisation behind RoBoLeague—explained that the competition serves as a testbed for advanced technologies like bipedal dynamic balancing and multi-agent collaborative decision-making. According to Bian, the event not only validates technical progress in robotic football but also strengthens the development of responsive, embodied robotics.

“The innovations demonstrated here will soon be applied to real-world industries and everyday scenarios,” Bian said. He also revealed plans to expand the competition into a broader series of robot events—including a robot half-marathon and future RoBoLeague tournaments—to further integrate humanoid robots into practical use cases.