A Highly Responsive Autonomous Table Tennis Robot That Can Beat Professional Players

Sony AI built an incredibly fast and responsive autonomous robot that can play a rapid fire game of table tennis without missing a shot.

A complete autonomous robot that plays a physical sport needs to do three things: sense, decide, and act—all within milliseconds.

This particular sport presents the perfect challenge for the robot, as there is no room for error.

The sport demands extreme precision: The ball moves at linear velocities exceeding 20 m/s and with spin rates exceeding 160 revolutions per second. Spin is used to make shots harder to return or to gain tactical advantage. Responding requires expert players to master a range of skills for tracking, reacting to and generating high-speed, high spin shots.

This robot is the primary subject of Project Ace, which started in 2020. As of 2026, “Ace” can actually beat professional players at their own game.

This short film follows the research team behind the project—from the earliest experiments in 2020 to the moment Ace defeated a professional player in a live match.

Project Ace

via The Awesomer

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

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