The leading Chinese robotics firm Unitree dominated the first day of Beijing’s World Humanoid Robot Games. Yet amid the triumphs on the track, a chilling mishap is sure to heighten concerns about whether these increasingly autonomous machines are safe enough for everyday life.
The first-of-its-kind spectacle, featuring more than 500 robots from 280 teams across 16 countries, showcased technological leaps while also spotlighting the precarious balance between innovation and safety.
Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics, launched in 2016 by hardware engineer Wang Xingxing, brought its flagship full-sized humanoid, the H1, and its short king, the G1, to compete in athletic and combat events. The robots were controlled via a mix of teleoperation and partial autonomy.
The H1 robot won the gold medal in a 1,500-meter track and field race, finishing in 6 minutes and 34 seconds.
Unitree introduced the first H1 prototype back in late 2023, when the Chinese government made it national policy to mass produce humanoids by 2025 and own the emerging market by 2027. The H1, which is priced starting around $90K, made headlines throughout 2024 and 2025 for its athletic and dancing capabilities, which were on full display for a billion viewers during China’s Spring Festival Gala.
A Unitree subsidiary, Beijing Lingyi Technology, operated the first-place H1 humanoid during the classic middle-distance race. The speed, averaging at 3.8 m/s, is significantly lower than human runners. It also pales in comparison to the controlled demo footage that Unitree released on the eve of the robot games event.
The video, recorded at the Beijing venue, doesn’t disclose the exact speed but consensus on social media places it around 15 km/h. That would be a significant improvement over the H1’s previous record speed of nearly 12 km/h miles from 2024. The H1’s performance, while a record for humanoid robots in a competitive setting, highlights the current limitations of bipedal robotics.
Beijing’s indigenously built open-source humanoid, Tiangong, came in second place while another H1 robot came in third.
Unitree’s H1 also won the gold medal in a 400-meter race, setting a competitive humanoid world record with a time of 1 minute and 28 seconds. For comparison, the human record is 43 seconds.
In post race comments, Unitree’s founder lamented lost points due to a serious mistake from physical exhaustion among the team. He said he plans to rely less on remote control during future competitions for ultimate speed.
One viral moment from the day highlighted the potential dangers of robots in public arenas.
During the 1,500-meter race, a Unitree H1 robot is seen running into a person operating a much smaller robot and knocking him down. Though the fallen operator gets up quickly and was apparently not seriously hurt, it could have been a lot worse.
The H1 robot weighs about 47 kg (104 lbs), which is hefty enough to crack bones or cause head injuries at top speeds. The incident is likely to heighten concerns about the growing ubiquity of Chinese humanoids like the H1, the G1, and its new R1 robot, which is priced starting at $5,300.
Viral footage from earlier this year, apparently leaked from a Chinese lab, showed a Unitree H1 robot violently flailing during a factory test, scattering lab equipment and sending engineers scrambling for safety. In another viral moment, an H1 humanoid at a festival in China suddenly lurched toward a safety barrier until its handlers gained control, during what appears to be Chinese New Year festivities.
Unitree’s official terms and policies acknowledge the risks of damage caused by collisions between robots and people in complex environments.
During the first day of the humanoid robot games, Unitree’s shorter G1 robots participated in one-on-one bouts. Those robots, which are priced starting around $16K, are becoming increasingly common outside China.