Sony AI Robot Ace Defeats Pro Table Tennis Players

In a breakthrough for artificial intelligence and robotics, Sony AI has developed an autonomous robot named Ace that competes effectively against elite and professional table tennis players, sometimes securing victories in matches played under official rules. The robot, tested at Sony's headquarters in Tokyo, demonstrated its capabilities in a series of games starting in April 2025, marking the first time such a system has reached expert-level performance in a fast-paced physical sport.

Ace integrates advanced perception technology with AI-driven decision-making and precise robotic control to handle the demands of table tennis, where balls travel at high speeds with unpredictable spins and trajectories. Its system features nine synchronized cameras and three vision setups to track the ball in three-dimensional space and detect spin by monitoring the ball's logo, enabling responses faster than human reaction times. An AI brain, trained through deep reinforcement learning in simulated environments, allows Ace to adapt strategies on the fly without preprogrammed responses. The robot's arm, equipped with eight joints for positioning, orientation, and shot execution, wields a paddle...