[Beijing = E-Daily Lee Myeongcheol Correspondent] A humanoid robot the size of an adult man steps onto an octagonal ring set up under dim lighting. Its face, with eyes that emit red light, closely resembles the robot from the movie “The Terminator.”

Once in the ring, the robot warms up and immediately engages in a fight with a man who has been waiting. The man, wearing headgear, reaches out his arms toward the robot but does not appear to land any significant blows. Instead, the match ends when the man is struck by the robot’s powerful kick and rolls across the floor.

According to local media outlets such as the China Youth Daily on the 22nd, a combat tournament pitting humans against humanoid robots, hosted by the U.S. combat organization REK, took place in San Francisco on the 20th.

The robot participating in this tournament is the “T800” model developed by China’s Engine AI (Zhongqing Robotics). It is also famous for having participated in a recent humanoid robot fighting tournament in China, where it continued to throw punches while still standing—even after its head was kicked off.

The standard version of this model stands 173 cm tall, but additional exterior components were added to reflect the style of the movie “Terminator,” bringing its height to 183 cm. It weighs 75 kg.

Although it won the match against a human, strictly speaking, the robot did not move autonomously; instead, an operator wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset and motion controller remotely controlled it. The robot itself was responsible for maintaining dynamic balance and correcting its posture.

As seen in the video, the robot demonstrates a variety of movements, such as spinning kicks and automatically getting back up after falling, thanks to its dozens of joints (actuators). The maximum torque of a single joint reaches 450 Nm (newton-meters). Equipped with a proprietary all-solid-state battery, it can operate for 4 to 5 hours on a single charge.

As robot technology advances at an accelerated pace, it is increasingly being introduced not only for basic movements like running but also in sports where robots can compete against humans, such as martial arts and table tennis.

Zhao Tongyang, founder of Engine AI, noted, “I was once knocked down by the T800 while wearing protective gear and testing it myself; if you were hit by one of its kicks without protective gear, you could easily suffer a fracture,” adding, “There is a massive imbalance in strength between a metal body and a body made of flesh and blood.”

However, Engine AI clarified that its participation in this martial arts competition is not intended to determine whether humans or machines are stronger, but rather to collect motion and impact data during high-intensity collisions in order to iteratively improve the robot’s balance, force control, and perception algorithms.

China’s humanoid robot industry is entering a phase of full-scale commercialization.

Chinese automaker Xpeng launched the world’s first automated production line for high-end general-purpose humanoid robots on the 9th. The sight of the first robot model walking off the production line on its own after being automatically assembled became a hot topic.

Luozhujing, a humanoid robot manufacturer, has launched a production line in Guangdong with an annual capacity of 10,000 units, while Zixunkeji has surpassed a cumulative mass production total of 15,000 units.

Interest from the capital markets is also high. According to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency, financing in China’s embodied intelligence sector reached 93.5 billion yuan (approximately 19 trillion won) in the first half of this year—more than five times the amount from the same period last year—while the number of financing deals rose by 137% to 322.

Xinhua noted, “Robots equipped with autonomous intelligence are seeing accelerated adoption not only in the consumer market but also in industrial-scale applications,” adding, “Through technological accumulation and rapid evolution, they are moving beyond the demonstration phase and expanding into large-scale mass production, stable delivery, and real-world scenario applications.”

With its vast land and large population, all sorts of things happen every day in China. “Another Peaceful Day in China” delivers a variety of stories from China—some intriguing, some absurd, and some amusing—as well as issues that can be both moving and meaningful. [Editor’s Note]