Robot teams from around the world have arrived in Beijing and are preparing for the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games which is scheduled to take place between August 14 and 17 in the Chinese capital.

A total of 30 teams from countries such as the United States, Brazil, Germany, and Portugal have been registered to play in the football competition, according to the organizers.

The Shanhai Team from the China Agricultural University competed in the RoboCup Humanoid Robot Soccer World Cup in Brazil in June and finished as the runners-up.

Two groups of humanoid robots faced off in fully autonomous 5-on-5 soccer matches powered entirely by artificial intelligence. Equipped with advanced visual sensors, the robots were able to identify the ball and navigate the field with agility. They were also designed to stand up on their own after falling.

Yang Shaoshuai, leader of the Shanhai Team, told reporters that most of the teams in the competition are using robots provided by Chinese company Booster Robotics.

"This hardware platform is very powerful with dribbling and ball control algorithms, so we don't need to spend too much effort on these aspects," Yang said. "We mainly make adjustments to the code in terms of perception, positioning, and decision-making."

While recognizing the gap between robots and humans, Yang said the robots are growing fast.

"I personally think that the football ability of current robots may be equivalent to that of a five to six-year-old child," Yang noted. "Its speed and ability to perceive the overall situation have a certain gap compared to humans."

Antonio Ribeiro and his colleagues from Portugal's University of Minho formed their robot team just two weeks ago and they are losing no time in training them.

Ribeiro said his side was given the same robots from Booster Robotics, but they need to install their own software to improve the football skills of the robots. They even made custom feet for the robots.

"Obviously there's some low-level PID control on the motors, but we are basically doing the software from the ground up, from scratch," he said.

China is stepping up efforts to develop AI-powered humanoid robots, using sports competitions like marathons, boxing, and football as a real-world proving ground.