China opens world's first robot mall

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Beijing has opened doors to the world’s first robot mall, a sleek four-story, 13K-square-feet shrine to humanoids and service bots, complete with a robot-themed restaurant.

Visitors can test-drive mechanical butlers, pet robo-animals, and shop industrial-grade androids. It’s part retail spectacle and part China’s bold bid to dominate the robot revolution.

In today’s robotics rundown:

• China opens world’s first robot mall

• Robot cage fights are now a thing in SF

• ‘Drummer’ humanoid that can outplay humans

• China deploys battlefield ‘robot wolves’

• Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

CHINESE ROBOTICS

🤖 China opens world’s first robot mall

The Rundown: Coinciding with the 2025 World Robot Conference, China launched its first-ever robot mall in Beijing’s E-Town district, a four-story, 4K-square-meter (13K-square-feet) retail complex dedicated entirely to humanoid and service robots.

The details:

• The world’s first “humanoid robot 4S” retail space is modeled on the auto industry’s 4S formula of Sales, Service, Spare Parts, and Surveys.

• Shoppers can browse and test over 100 robots from 40+ domestic brands, spanning mechanical butlers, robotic pets, and industrial-grade humanoids.

• Prices range from 2K yuan ($278) for entry-level bots to multimillion-yuan bots powered by chips that handle up to 275 trillion operations per second.

• Government subsidies as high as $14K encourage both enterprises and consumers to deploy robots in work and daily life.

Why it matters: This marks the world’s first retail environment built exclusively for robots, melding a tech showroom, commercial hub, and live R&D testbed under one roof. China is backing robotics with more than $20B in subsidies, and a sleek new retail space like this is a major flex.

ROBOT FIGHT CLUB

🥊 Robot cage fights are now a thing in SF

The Rundown: In San Francisco, robot fight clubs are reportedly emerging as the tech scene’s new obsession, fusing DIY hardware hacking, AI, and underground performance art — all into gritty, hype-heavy spectacle for the coder crowd.

The details:

• Once demo nights, these events are quickly evolving into a scene with tickets treated as status symbols and production complexity ramping up.

• Events in San Francisco’s Frontier Tower basement feature Unitree and Booster Robotics humanoids with hundreds of tech workers and influencers attending.

• DIY ring “girls,” like a Roomba fused to a fishnet mannequin leg, whirl around to pick up thrown cash, and human emcees in glitter jackets narrate every punch.

• Bouts pit these bots in full boxing gear, costumes, and protective helmets, creating surreal scenes that blur the line between cosplay and robotics.

Why it matters: As more polished robot boxing events are gaining traction worldwide, these gritty underground scenes take a different spin, turning AI and robotics into something raw and creative. It also shows how tech culture is evolving into new forms of interactive entertainment, with things likely to get only weirder.

ROBOT RESEARCH

🥁 ‘Drummer’ humanoid that can outplay humans

The Rundown: Swiss and Italian researchers just developed a humanoid drummer capable of learning and performing complex live percussion using reinforcement learning rather than preprogrammed sequences.

The details:

• The robot interprets drum scores as “rhythmic contact chains,” enabling humanlike adaptations such as alternating hands and arm crossings.

• It was trained in high‑fi simulation with MIDI tracks from multiple genres, building precise timing and expressive playing skills.

• The system coordinates up to 15 degrees of freedom in its upper body, planning movements across a full kit to maintain rhythm and spatial accuracy.

• The robot achieves over 90% rhythmic accuracy, rivaling skilled human drummers and handling demanding drum fills and rapid note sequences.

Why it matters: The next step is bringing these skills from simulation (it was tested on a Unitree G1) to a physical robot able to play acoustic drums, perform with live bands, and improvise in real time. It’s part of a wider shift from rigid programming to autonomous, adaptive learning in robotics.

ROBOT DOGS

🐺 China deploys battlefield ‘robot wolves’

The Rundown: China’s state broadcaster CCTV released new footage of its scary “robot wolves” — quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicles armed with combat rifles — working live in People’s Liberation Army military drills.

The details:

• Unlike previous, lighter robot dogs used for reconnaissance, these beefed-up robot wolves are designed specifically for front-line combat.

• They maneuver over rugged terrain in coordinated packs carrying assault rifles (such as QBZ-191) and executing precision strikes up to 100m away.

• The robots divide battlefield tasks in a pack, with leaders transmitting battlefield images and scouts, shooters, or ammo carriers adapting on the fly.

• With AI-driven navigation, LiDAR, and near-limitless endurance, the bots are built to take on high-risk battlefield roles and reduce casualties.

Why it matters: These drills, following the robot wolves’ debut in late 2024, mark the first time such armaments have run alongside soldiers exchanging nonlethal gunfire. Of course, the bots are fueling both national pride and a heap of anxieties about the autonomous future of gun-toting battlefield machines.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in robotics today

Unitree founder Wang Xingxing says robotics’ “ChatGPT moment” could arrive within two years.

Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas estimates that a $5/hour leased humanoid replacing two $25/hour workers could be worth $200K each in net present value.

Fourier’s new GR‑3 is a 5'4", 55 kg humanoid “care‑bot” with vision, audio, and tactile sensing — 31 pressure sensors, expressive gestures, and a soft-touch shell.

Tesla is shutting down its Dojo supercomputer team, designed to supercharge autonomous driving and robotics, with leader Peter Bannon departing the company.

A new HCI/HRI study finds that even a simple tabletop robot originally designed to read aloud can evolve into a meaningful emotional companion for children.

A mobile robot arm was tested onsite in Germany for human-machine collaboration, demonstrating real-world teamwork between robots and builders in laying bricks.

iRobot reported a Q2 2025 revenue increase of 6% in Japan, but saw sharp declines of 33% in the U.S. and 17% in EMEA compared to last year.

FORT Robotics nabbed $18.9 M in Series B funding to accelerate development of its safety platform for autonomous machines and physical AI.

COMMUNITY

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See you soon,

Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team