China’s Robot Craze Has Found Its Purpose

For much of the year, Chinese state-backed media has had a field day promoting the idea that the era of humanoid robots isn’t coming. It’s already here.

These machines and their proponents know how to put on a show. Robots took center stage, performing a traditional dance at the highly watched CCTV Lunar New Year broadcast earlier this year, and participated in a half marathon last month. Two robot boxers are set to compete in the world’s first machine-on-machine showdown. Even China-wary US outlet Fox News has been impressed by their bots’ Kung Fu moves.