An innovation competition co-organised by China’s fintech giant Ant Group and renowned universities including the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is featuring robotics for the first time, a reflection of rising interest in the technology.
The ATEC Championship 2025, hosted by the industry-university-research collaboration platform Advanced Technology Exploration Community (ATEC), has adopted the theme “AI and robotics real-world challenges”, offering a total prize pool exceeding US$200,000, according to a statement.
The contest, which officially kicked off in late February, is co-organised by Ant, CUHK, Peking University and Beijing Normal University, the statement said. Ant is affiliated with Alibaba Group Holding, the owner of the South China Morning Post.
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It is the fifth such event since 2020, with past competitions focusing on artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, anti-fraud measures and wildlife protection.
A man shakes hands with a humanoid robot from Unitree Robotics during the Global Developer Conference in Shanghai on February 21, 2025. Photo: AFP alt=A man shakes hands with a humanoid robot from Unitree Robotics during the Global Developer Conference in Shanghai on February 21, 2025. Photo: AFP>
The event comes as robotics has become the latest buzz word in China. At Chinese President Xi Jinping’s high-profile business symposium last month, Wang Xingxing, founder of start-up Unitree Robotics, was seen seated in the front row. He was also the youngest among an elite group of tech executives in attendance.
Local governments from Shenzhen to Beijing are pledging subsidies and other supportive policies for robotics businesses. The robotics industry in China is forecast to be worth 595 billion yuan (US$81.7 billion) by 2027, more than double the size in 2022, according to consultancy iiMedia.
The ATEC Championship 2025 will include a software track, where participants are tasked with designing embodied autonomous AI agents for a virtual rescue mission, as well as a hardware track that asks for a machine that integrates a legged robot with a robotic arm. Both contests will be conducted online.
In addition, an offline session that focuses more on comprehensive application and problem-solving abilities will be held.
The judging panel comprises more than 60 scholars and experts from globally renowned institutions, including the University of California, Berkeley, and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
Ant has ventured into the booming humanoid robotics sector as well. In December, it established Shanghai Mayi Lingbo Technology for the “research and development of embodied-intelligence technology and products”, an Ant representative said.
The company has posted job openings, from electrical engineers and hardware specialists to algorithm engineers, to develop the so-called embodied intelligence, which refers to the application of AI in physical systems, such as robots.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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