Outplaying elite table tennis players with an autonomous robot

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems now challenge or surpass human experts in many computer games1,2. Physical and real-time sports such as table tennis, however, remain a major open challenge because of their requirements for fast, precise and adversarial interactions near obstacles and at the edge of human reaction time3. Here we present Ace, to our knowledge the first real-world autonomous system competitive with elite human table tennis players. Ace addresses the challenges of physical real-time interaction through a new, high-speed perception system using event-based vision sensors4, and a new control system based on model-free reinforcement learning, as well as state-of-the-art high-speed robot hardware. Evaluated in matches against elite and professional players under official competition rules, Ace achieved several victories and demonstrated consistent returns of high-speed, high-spin shots. These results highlight the potential of physical AI agents to perform complex, real-time interactive tasks, suggesting broader applications in domains requiring fast, precise human–robot interaction.