Eight-year-old ‘kung fu boys’ faced off against Chinese humanoid robots wielding long poles in flawless sparring matches, drawing low gasps from the audience. These robots, the 130 cm-tall ‘G1’ model by Chinese company Unitree,

Can you imagine a Super Bowl halftime show where, instead of human dancers, all the performers are humanoid robots?

The robots were developed by Unitree, alongside contributions from three other Chinese robotics companies—Galbot, Noetix and MagicLab—highlighting the depth of the country’s growing robotics ecosystem...