Chinese triumphs at the robot games bring global tech domination closer

Gold medals galore in Beijing highlight another sector in which the rest of the world is falling behind China

- James Kynge

Everybody loves a plucky loser. So one of the heroes at the world's first humanoid games, held in China last week, was a robot called Taishan. It fell over, lost an arm and then got up to complete a 1,500m race with wires dangling from the stump of its shoulder. Taishan was cheered and clapped as it staggered across the finish line.

The World Humanoid Robot Games hosted in Beijing drew 280 teams from 16 countries, the US among them. Chinese companies such as Unitree Robotics and X-Humanoid swept the medal table, excelling in events including running, long jump and kickboxing.

This performance is not merely a curiosity. Humanoid robotics is the latest of several high-tech sectors in which Chinese companies are taking a global lead. The disruptive shock sustained by competitor companies in the west is intensifying - and looks set to become one of the biggest economic themes of the decade, analysts say.

"The US, Europe and the rest of East Asia are right to fear further deindustrialisation," said Dan Wang, author of a new book, Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future.

Wang describes a dynamic in which China has suppressed consumerism in order to channel money into advanced technology industries, creating white-knuckle domestic competition. One upshot of this is an overwhelming impulse to export in order to chase fatter profit margins.

It is early days for humanoid robots. Export volumes are still embryonic. But the potential is clear now that domestic prices of humanoids are falling precipitously, bringing them within reach of wealthy individual consumers for the first time.