Hephaestus Team Retains RoboCup Soccer Title as 11v11 Humanoid Robot Match Debuts

The Hephaestus team from Tsinghua University in China successfully defended its title at the 2026 RoboCup humanoid robot soccer world championship held in Incheon, South Korea. The team won the Large Division final against CAU Mountain & Sea from China Agricultural University, marking a continuation of their historic rise in advanced robotics since their first victory in Brazil last year. Hephaestus dominated the tournament with decisive wins, including an 8-0 quarterfinal victory, relying on the T1 platform developed by Chinese company Booster Robotics, which has become a key technology provider for top teams worldwide.

A landmark event at this year's competition was the first-ever full 11 versus 11 match between full-sized humanoid robots on a regulation soccer field. The German teams B-Human and HTWK Robots competed, with B-Human winning 4-0, demonstrating significant advances in robot coordination, movement, and artificial intelligence. The tournament featured teams from 45 countries and introduced a unified league structure for humanoid robots across three size categories: small, medium, and large.

Booster Robotics' platforms were widely adopted not only by Chinese teams but also by leading groups from Germany and the United States. RoboCup Federation President Obo Wisser highlighted the event's role as a global innovation driver and reaffirmed the ambitious goal of fielding an autonomous robot team capable of defeating the human soccer world champion by 2050, a vision that now appears increasingly attainable.