Pepper vs Tiangong Ultra
Compare Pepper (SoftBank Robotics) and Tiangong Ultra (Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center) side by side: degrees of freedom, weight, payload, battery life, actuators, and status.
| Spec | Pepper | Tiangong Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | SoftBank Robotics | Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center |
| Category | Humanoid | Humanoid |
| Country | Japan | China |
| Degrees of freedom | 17 | null |
| Weight (kg) | 28 | 55 |
| Battery life (h) | 12 | null |
| Payload | N/A (no arms lifting) | 15 kg |
| Max speed | 1.0 m/s | 12 km/h |
| Actuators | Brushless DC Servo Motors | |
| Primary sensor | Stereo cameras + 3D Depth Sensor + 4x Microphones | |
| Function | Social interaction | High-speed locomotion and task execution |
| Released | 2014 | 2025 |
| Status | Active | Active |
Verdict
On weighted specifications (price, degrees of freedom, payload, speed, battery life), the Pepper edges out the Tiangong Ultra — 60.0 to 40.0 on a 100-point scale. The Tiangong Ultra still wins on the dimensions where it leads; check the table above for the spec-by-spec breakdown before deciding.
Pepper
A social humanoid designed for human interaction in retail, hospitality, and healthcare settings. Pepper detects faces, recognizes emotions, and engages in natural conversation with multi-language speech synthesis.
Tiangong Ultra
Tiangong Ultra is a full-size humanoid robot developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center. It achieved a 100m sprint time of 9.39 seconds at the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games, surpassing human records, and previously won a humanoid robot half-marathon in 2 hours 40 minutes.