Nature has successfully combined soft matter and hydration lubrication to achieve ultra-low friction even at relatively high contact pressure (e.g. articular cartilage). Inspired by this, scientists have used hydrogels to mimic natural aqueous lubricating systems. However, hydrogels usually cannot bear high load because of solvation in water environments and are, therefore, not adopted in real applications. In this work, we developed a novel composite surface of ordered hydrogel nanofiber arrays confined in anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) nanoporous template based on a soft/hard combination strategy. The synergy between the soft hydrogel fibers, which provide excellent aqueous lubrication, and the hard phase AAO, which gives high load bearing capacity, is shown to be capable of attaining very low coefficient of friction (< 0.01) under heavy load (with mean contact pressures in the 2 MPa range). Interestingly, the composite synthetic material was very stable and could not be peeled off during sliding and exhibited the desirable regenerative (self-healing) properties, which can assure long term resistance to wear. Moreover, the crosslinked polymethylacrylic acid (PMAA) hydrogels were shown to be able to promptly switch between high friction (> 0.3) and superlubrication (∼10 −3 ) when their state was changed from contracted to swollen by means of acidbasic actuation. The mechanisms governing ultra-low and tunable friction are theoretically explained via an in-depth study of the chemo-mechanical interactions responsible for the behavior of these substrate-infiltrated hydrogels. These findings open a promising route for the design of ultra-slippery and smart surface/interface materials.