Scenes from the Hollywood blockbuster I, Robot, where the machines carry out all manner of human assistance, may become a reality in China sooner than expected, after the country's excellent performance at a recent high-profile international robot competition.

Chinese teams grabbed most of the trophies at the RoboCup China Open 2007, held between October 26 and 28 in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province. The international event to promote robot research, education and competition in China was dominated by China's prestigious Peking University and Harbin Engineering University, which took gold medals for aquatic and aerial robot games.

Held for the second time in China, the RoboCup China Open, an event sponsored by RoboCup, an international research and education initiative to foster artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent robotics research, drew an impressive 413 teams, of which 22 were from overseas.

Leading the competition

Robots made in China had made an impression on the world even before the RoboCup China Open. In August 2007 China's Xi'an Jiaotong University emerged as winners of the Sixth ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest, or ABU Robocon (ABU-Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union). That contest had 19 teams from 18 countries and regions in the Asia-Pacific and took place in Hanoi, Viet Nam.

It was the first time that a team from China had won the annual competition, which began in 2002, defeating the Indonesian team in the final showdown and ousting three-time winners, and title holders, Viet Nam. The University of Science and Technology of China, Southwest University of Science and Technology and University of Science and Technology Beijing took second place at the ABU Robocon 2002, 2004 and 2005 event, respectively, entrenching China's virtual stranglehold on this competition.

On the domestic scene, annual competitions like the CCTV Cup-National College Students Robot Competition, which was started in 2002, have also provided an incentive for young scientists. Not surprisingly, this year's competition was won by the Xi'an Jiaotong University team.

The university should not only teach students, but also encourage them to do whatever they are good at, said Vice President of Xi'an Jiaotong University Qiu Jin, when he was asked to comment on the school's victory at the ABU Robocon contest.

Hu Yaxin, a team member of the victorious 30-person robot-building team, said winning was sweet and a long time coming. "The success didn't come easy and we have waited for so long to see this victory."

In a way, his words had a deeper meaning, as humans have always dreamed of creating a machine with human-like qualities that could relieve the many tedious functions in daily and industrial life.

Late start

The dream came true in the spring of 1961 when the world's first industrial robot was designed by a General Motors plant in the United States. Over the next 40 years the robot family expanded to more than 1 million robots worldwide, most of which are industrial robots.