A global debut at the Shanghai fair
On November 7, as part of the ninth China International Import Expo, the open-source Hitch Open platform was presented globally in the Lingang exhibition area. According to IT Home, citing the Lingang group, Hitch Open originates from California's Silicon Valley and has an academic base at the University of California, Berkeley. The platform was released as open source for a global audience during the event.
The presentation falls under the category of so-called physical intelligence, a field that aims to make artificial intelligence systems operate in real, non-simulated environments. The platform positions itself as a competition space to test the limits of these capabilities, with the stated goal of promoting the development of autonomous driving, embodied intelligence and robotics.
The 142-rally record and its implications
During the event, a ping pong challenge was held between robots with autonomous decision-making. The team of Professor Gao Yue of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Shanghai Zhi Institute, in collaboration with the Hitch Open platform, set a new record of 142 rallies. The result was presented as a world record for this specific test.
According to the source, ping pong represents an extreme testing ground for physical intelligence: the speed of the ball and the complexity of the spins leave the robot a reaction window of just about a hundred milliseconds. This requires the system to complete the entire perception, decision and action loop in real time. Each additional rally is read as a simultaneous improvement in perceptual accuracy, decision-making speed and motor control.
The value of the record therefore goes beyond the numerical figure: it suggests that robotic systems are capable of sustaining dynamic and unpredictable tasks for longer periods. However, the material does not specify the test conditions, such as the robots' configuration, the type of opponent or the criteria for counting rallies—elements necessary to fully assess the significance of the result.
What remains to be verified
The news is based on a note from the Lingang group reported by IT Home and does not include independent statements, third-party corroboration or technical details on how the platform works. The term open source is used in the presentation, but no license, repository or actually released components are indicated.
Moreover, the lack of information on how the record was measured makes it difficult to compare it with other experiments. The figure of 142 rallies is presented as a world record, but without references to previous attempts or recognized standards. The replicability of the test and the actual degree of openness of the platform therefore remain to be clarified—aspects that will determine the initiative's actual impact on the robotics community.
