The fastest track and field athlete is no longer the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. In fact, it is not a person at all: it is the Chinese humanoid robot Tiangong Ultra, which in August ran 100 meters in 9.39 seconds, nearly two-tenths of a second faster than Bolt’s world-record time and more than twice as fast as its own time a year ago. The race made global headlines and spread on social media in large part because of what it revealed robots still can’t do—in this case, slow down, as Tiangong Ultra ran right through the finish line and slammed into a safety wall. But it also showcased the incredible progress China’s robotics industry has made and the narrowing gap between human capabilities and new technology.

China’s robotics achievements have become central to its evolving national AI strategy. Whereas Washington and Silicon Valley focus primarily on scaling large language models and digital AI applications, Beijing is concentrating on combining its strengths in software and hardware to develop robots that incorporate the advanced cognition of AI with autonomous physical movement. These robots, often described in China as “embodied AI,” could eventually operate factories, perform manual labor, and even replace human soldiers on the battlefield. If AI-powered robots develop enough autonomy to carry out sophisticated tasks in the real world, they could become a general-purpose technology, like electricity or the Internet, that is able to transform physical work across broad swaths of the economy.

For Beijing, a powerful AI-driven robotics industry could serve several of its economic and strategic goals. It could ease demographic pressures from an aging population by reducing the need for workers and providing eldercare. It could also supercharge Beijing’s military capabilities by automating its reconnaissance, logistics, and combat operations. Most notably, some leading Chinese thinkers believe robotics could be the key to unlocking artificial general intelligence—systems capable of performing as well as or better than humans across most tasks. China’s investments in AI-powered robotics could be especially consequential if today’s leading AI companies in Silicon Valley, which are focused on scaling the data and computing power used to train large models, struggle to translate their digital gains into advancements in the physical world.

Skeptics might think that AI-powered robots are the stuff of science fiction. But as robotics technology rapidly develops, China is betting that some of the most consequential advances in AI will hinge on mastery of the physical world. If that bet is right, even only partially, the United States’ lead in frontier models would matter far less than many in Washington assume. What would matter instead is the capacity to build robots, deploy them in sectors such as manufacturing and logistics, and generate enough data to continuously train them—all areas in which the United States currently underinvests. To compete, Washington needs to expand its own manufacturing sector and work with partners around the world that have developed advantages in key parts of the robotics supply chain. As China sprints ahead, the United States needs to get serious about AI-powered robots or it risks getting left behind.

The Chinese government is determined to lead the transformation toward a world of AI-powered robots. Beijing has placed embodied AI among what it calls the “industries of the future,” alongside 6G and quantum technology, and named it a priority in the 15th Five-Year Plan—the country’s socioeconomic blueprint through 2030. Facing high youth unemployment, a property market still in crisis, sluggish domestic consumption, and an aging and shrinking population, Beijing sees embodied AI as a new growth engine that could offset these headwinds while also pushing technological frontiers.

Innovations aimed at addressing domestic challenges could quickly create a geoeconomic advantage. China already controls key chokepoints in the emerging........

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