Sony AI just published the first autonomous robot to beat elite humans at a competitive physical sport. Its name is Ace. The sport is table …

Sony AI just published the first autonomous robot to beat elite humans at a competitive physical sport. Its name is Ace. The sport is table tennis. The paper dropped in Nature today. 9 cameras triangulate the ball in 3D. Three systems zoom in on the ball's logo mid-flight to read its spin axis. End-to-end reaction time is around 20 milliseconds, roughly 10x faster than a human. It learned by playing itself for 3,000 hours in simulation. No human demonstrations. In April 2025, Ace beat 3 of 5 elite players and lost to both pros. By December, it had beaten a pro. At one point, Ace returned an impossible backspin shot. Kinjiro Nakamura, a 1992 Barcelona Olympian, watched from the side: "No one else would have been able to do that. I didn't think it was possible. But the fact that it was possible means there is a possibility that a human could do it too." Media

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Source: Rowan Cheung (X) | 2026-04-22

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