Cheng Hao’s AI robot football sparks revolutionary shift in sports with historic Beijing match | International Sports News
On Saturday June 29, 2025, history was made in Beijing, China. This was not just any ordinary football match as there were no humans involved. Four teams of AI humanoid robots were competing for the first time in a three-a-side football tournament. This competitive appearance was vital for the robots’ sports capability and moreover it gave the world knowledge that sport is changing and AI is having an influence. However, things did look futuristic and moving in that direction, the match did demonstrate how far robots have to go.
How Cheng Hao’s AI robots made football history in Beijing despite struggles
Booster Robotics, a tech firm run by Cheng Hao, organized an AI robotic football match in a stadium in Beijing, China. The teams were humanoid robots developed by university students. Each team controlled the robots using their own software in order for the robots to move, pass, and kick a ball.While the idea was exciting, the match had many funny moments. The robots fell down often, missed easy kicks, and even needed help standing up again. Some robots were removed from the match after failing to get back on their feet.Still, Cheng Hao saw it as a big step forward. He said, “In the future, we may arrange for robots to play football with humans. That means we must ensure the robots are completely safe.”Tsinghua University’s AI robots claim world’s first robot football championshipThe final AI robot football match was played between Tsinghua University’s THU Robotics team and China Agricultural University’s Mountain Sea team. The exciting final ended with a 5–3 victory for Tsinghua, who became the first robot football champions. A student from the winning side said, “They did really well, but the Mountain Sea team also gave us a surprise.”Subramanian Ramamoorthy , a professor at the University of Edinburgh, said that the robots were as good as the robots being demonstrated at the RoboCup competitions, and they were getting better each year.The demonstration confirmed that robots are in no position to replace human players similar to Kylian Mbappe, but getting better each game. The mix of AI, football, and robotics is now a real thing, and it’s just getting started.
