Chinese police have today shown off a robotic colleague and a mechanised dog at the Chinese F1 Grand Prix.
The robots, a humanoid G1 and dog-link GO2 made by Chinese robotics firm Unitree, were spotted monitoring the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit today.
Unitree claims that the G1, which is 130cm (4ft 3in) tall, can carry up to 3kg (6.6lbs) and can move up to 2m/s (5mph).
The GO2, meanwhile, is claimed to be able to carry up to 12kg (26lbs), and can run at 5m/s (11mph).
Both robots utilise LiDAR, an advanced mapping technique that bounces light off objects, to ‘see’ the world around them.
Footage from Unitree showed both robots completing complex moves. The G1 was seen dancing around, before the video cuts to a shot of it picking up a bo staff and moving it around.
The GO2, meanwhile, was seen jumping back and forth on its legs, before getting up on its front paws and waggling its hind legs in the air.
It comes just days after chipmaking giant Nvidia unveiled Blue, a cute advanced AI-powered robot with two legs, just 3 feet tall.
Footage shows Blue – which looks like the robot from the Pixar classic Wall-E – walk onto the stage as it’s introduced by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
‘Tell me that wasn’t amazing,’ Huang says to the audience, as Blue waddles up to him with a similar gait to a duck. ‘Look how smart you are!’
Like R2-D2 talking to C-3PO in Star Wars, Blue responds with an adorable series of bleeps and bloops as it looks up at its master.
However, it seems there’s still lots of work to do on Blue, as the bot was being controlled remotely by a staff member backstage.
It looks like Nvidia is not to be outdone – as Boston Dynamics has hit back with a fresh clip of its own cartwheeling humanoid.
Mr Huang introduced Blue at Nvidia’s GTC AI Conference on Tuesday in San Jose, California, described by some outlets as ‘the Super Bowl of AI’.
Blue, inspired by Star Wars, is part of a collaboration with Google and Disney, which owns the rights to the Lucasfilm movie franchise.
Disney will showcase the robot as several of its theme parks this summer, including Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland Paris.
In perhaps a well-timed X post, rival Boston Dynamics shared a new clip of its humanoid called Atlas performing some impressive acrobatics.
This latest version of Atlas, unveiled last year, is seen in the new clip doing cartwheels, forward rolls, hand stands and short runs.
It also crawls on all fours and does a sophisticated bit of breakdancing – but similar to Blue, not all is what it seems in the newest clip.