From Friday to Sunday, human handlers from 16 countries put about 500 bipedal robots through various motions to showcase the promise and limits of embodied artificial intelligence at what was billed as the first-ever World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing.

The games were meant to show off China’s latest robotics breakthroughs and highlight how humanoid machines could one day be used in real-world scenarios. It’s all part of the country’s broader push to win the global robotics race.