It's a battle of the bots.

With their metallic frames gleaming under the arena lights, the robots square off in a high-energy boxing match.

It's not quite Terminator, but there are jabs and kicks, dodges and counters - and a tumble to the floor.

Just like a human fight, there can only be one winner, and it's the red corner whose arm is raised in victory.

This is not in a boxing gym, but at the World Robot Expo which kicked off on Friday, August 8, in Beijing, China.

The robot boxers are from Unitree, one of China’s leading humanoid robot manufacturers.

The expo is part of the World Robot Conference sponsored by the Chinese government, aiming to highlight its advancements and the leading position robotics and AI.

More than 100 robotic companies, mostly from China, are showcasing their latest technologies and products during the four-day expo.

“I think the robotics industry is definitely a sunrise industry of the future,” says Song He, a visitor who works in the investment industry, after watching the robots boxing games.

“The commercial value of the industry should be highly recognised, and I think investing in robots is never too late,” he adds.

EngineAI, a robotic company from south China’s city of Shenzhen, has brought bipedal walking robots with dynamic balance control.

They can be adapted to various complex environments, according to the company.

Yao Qiyuan, co-founder and marketing director of EngineAI, says his company is focused on providing open source robotic bodies with high motion abilities for redevelopment in various ecosystems.

“We will continuously integrate them with various application landscapes to make their brains work better,” he says.

The key is sensors that allow them to perceive their environment and act accordingly.

“For example, he can see a stool, walk over and sit down on his own, etc.. All these motions are constantly breaking through the boundaries of this robot. Through these perception algorithms and sensors, it can better understand how the world operates,” says Yao.

UBTech Robotics, another leading humanoid and service robots provider based in Shengzhen, has series of industrial robots – Walker S.

UBTech aims to refine Walker S into a mass-produced, cost-effective assistant, competing directly with Tesla, Figure AI, and Agility Robotics.

“We believe that big models will to be integrated,” says Tan Min, chief branding officer of the company.

“The Machine Vision, the navigation, and the full-body operation control, etc., will become highly integrated into what we call an end-to-end big model.”

The latest Walker S2 has pioneered an autonomous battery swapping system.

The robot can replace its own battery within 3 minutes, supporting 24/7 uninterrupted operation.

“After solving this problem, we believe that an important challenge for the entry of industrial humanoid robots will be overcome,” says Tan.

NEOTIX presents its latest lifelike robot, Hobbs, which contains 32 servomotors embedded underneath its silicon skin.

They control the checks, eyelids, mouth, enabling the robot to mimic more than 80% of human facial expressions, according to Han Shenren, CFO of the company.

Hobbs can recognise human emotions through a camera and replicate them with low latency.

Lifelike robots are more and more used in robots for elderly care, as receptionists or even actor and actresses.

“You need to have an emotional value interaction with people, because robots are not just functional products, and they may gradually have some human warmth,” Han says.

Cool or creepy? Either way, robots are becoming more and more human every day.

AP video shot by Olivia Zhang and Wayne Zhang