US EditionSony AI Robot Ace Beats Elite Ping-Pong Players
Ace used reinforcement learning and high-speed sensors to beat elite players and challenge professionals, showing how adaptive robots can handle fast real-world competition.
- On Wednesday, April 22, 2026, researchers published a study in Nature detailing how Sony AI's robot, Ace, achieved "expert-level play in a commonly played competitive sport in the physical world."
- Between April 2025 and December 2025, Sony scientists refined Ace's performance, enabling the robot to beat both elite players and professional Japanese league players Minami Ando and Kakeru Sone.
- Using high-speed cameras and proprietary reinforcement learning, Ace identifies the ball's 3D position, scoring 16 unchallenged "aces" and maintaining a 75% serve return rate.
- Peter Dürr, director of Sony AI in Zurich, noted that table tennis requires "split-second decisions," highlighting potential for physical AI agents in complex, real-time interactive tasks.
- "This breakthrough is much bigger than table tennis," said Stone, chief scientist at Sony AI, as the field has advanced rapidly since Google DeepMind's robot was defeated two years ago.
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73 Articles
Sony AI’s ‘Ace’ robot beats elite table tennis players in real matches, signaling a leap in physical AI - Tech Startups
Sony just put a robot across the table—and it didn’t blink. In a series of live matchups that feel closer to science fiction than a lab demo, Sony AI’s table tennis robot, Ace, has beaten elite human players under official International […] The post Sony AI’s ‘Ace’ robot beats elite table tennis players in real matches, signaling a leap in physical AI first appeared on Tech Startups.
Sony AI builds a table tennis robot that reacts faster than humans can see
The Sony AI project focuses on table tennis, an activity that has resisted the kind of breakthroughs seen in digital environments. While AI has already outperformed humans in digital games, real-time physical sports remain difficult because they demand extremely fast, precise responses and continuous interaction under tight spatial and timing...Read Entire Article
Ace the Robot Shocks Table Tennis World
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