Robots break human sprint records in Beijing
A Chinese humanoid robot has beaten the men's 100-meter world record at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. On Saturday, August 22, during a preliminary heat, Tiangong Ultra, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, ran the distance in 9.39 seconds, surpassing Usain Bolt's record of 9.58 seconds set at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin. The feat was reported by several international outlets, with some attributing the robot to Beijing-based X-Humanoid.
The same robot also won its heat, overtaking smartphone maker Honor's Lightning, which finished in 9.47 seconds, also faster than Bolt's record. After the race, both robots slammed into a thick mat designed to stop them; Tiangong stumbled into the sidelines, while Lightning was carried away on a stretcher. "The two robots lacked Bolt's flair," noted Agence France-Presse reporters, highlighting the entertainment value of the spectacle.
The results marked a significant improvement from last year's inaugural games, when Tiangong Ultra won the 100 meters in 21.50 seconds. Organizers said on social platform X that robots have become twice as fast in one year, emphasizing the pace of advancement in the market and Chinese robotics.
More records fall
In the standing high jump event, a humanoid robot cleared 2.88 meters, surpassing the human world record of 2.45 meters set by Cuba's Javier Sotomayor in 1993. The same model also broke the 400-meter world record. On Sunday, Tiangong Ultra clocked 38.16 seconds in the 400 meters, shattering the human record by nearly five seconds, according to France 24 and the Malay Mail, citing state broadcaster CCTV. The time was later revised to 38.15 seconds.
The improvements have been dramatic: last year, the best standing high jump by a humanoid was 0.95 meters, according to Arkansas Online. The first World Humanoid Robot Games in 2025 saw Unitree's H1 win the 400 meters in 88 seconds, well behind the human record of 43 seconds.
The scale of the games
The second edition of the World Humanoid Robot Games brings together 2,056 robots from 666 teams across 16 countries and six continents, up from 280 teams at the inaugural event, as reported by CNBC TV18 and The Irish Times. The games feature 51 events and more than 1,000 competitions, including running, table tennis, soccer, boxing, football, weightlifting, and gymnastics. They are held at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing, built for the 2022 Winter Olympics, and run from August 20 to 24.
The games opened the same week as Beijing's 2026 World Robot Conference, where companies showcased around 3,000 products, including humanoid robots, according to Arkansas Online.
A race for technology and geopolitics
China has promoted humanoid robots as a strategic emerging industry, and the games demonstrate rapid progress as the technology race with the United States heats up. China makes the majority of the world's humanoid robots, with some manufacturers reporting thousands of orders.
The U.S. has stepped up scrutiny. Last month, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on imports of new foreign-made humanoid robots, citing national security concerns in a move targeting China. The Pentagon also added Unitree, a leading Chinese robot maker, to its list of companies with ties to the Chinese military. Beijing has rejected these accusations.
Investor enthusiasm is blooming. Unitree's shares jumped more than fivefold in its Shanghai trading debut on Wednesday, giving a market value of about $50 billion, as reported by CNBC TV. Morgan Stanley Research estimates the humanoid market could reach $5 trillion by 2050, with over a billion robots in use, and China is expected to have around 302 million of those, according to a report cited by Euronews.
The robots' shortcomings and the spectacle
The coverage also highlighted the robots' limits and the public's amusement. Multiple videos shared widely show robots slamming into mats, falling, tripping, or catching fire. In one 400-meter heat, a robot thrashed its arms and wobbled but stayed upright. Fans were delighted by the "flop" moments, with runners failing to start or walking the track. Spectators burst into laughter after a humanoid in a boxing ring stumbled and folded over the ropes.
A spectator at the games, 72-year-old Hou Yali, told reporters that the robot records were "not a test of intelligence" and that she would like robots to do more household tasks.
Perspectives from the field
Roboticists and experts have offered a more reserved point of view. Rodney Brooks, MIT emeritus professor behind iRobot, called an earlier Beijing robot race a "publicity stunt" with nothing useful for real audiences, as it doesn't measure practicality. Yanran Ding of the University of Michigan said people have "a cognitive bias to think that running a half marathon faster than a human is more difficult than folding laundry, which is not true."
Oregon State University's Alan Fern attributes the weight robot speed gains to engineering and investment rather than a breakthrough, and he notes that robots involved in the half-marathon were often remotely piloted; only 38% ran autonomously. In April, a humanoid half-marathon saw only 38% of entries running autonomously, as reported by The Next Web.
Industry players are shifting toward real-world tasks: NEURA Robotics is building gyms to train robots in messy physical spaces, and London's Humanoid has raised $152 million with Bosch lined up exclusively at scale.