A Chinese humanoid robot ran 100 metres in 9.39 seconds during a preliminary heat at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, faster than the men’s world record held by Jamaican sprinting great Usain Bolt. The machine, Tiangong Ultra, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, won its heat at the opening of the games’ second edition, organisers said.
It overtook a rival machine, built by smartphone maker Honor and named Lightning, near the finish after falling behind early. Lightning crossed in 9.47 seconds, also inside the 9.58-second mark Bolt set at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin. The result was a dramatic improvement on the inaugural games a year earlier, when Tiangong Ultra won the same event in 21.50 seconds, and the same machine had earlier claimed the world’s first humanoid robot half-marathon.
State media reported that Lightning had clocked an even quicker 9.32 seconds in a preparatory test, reaching a peak speed of 14.5 metres per second, and that the robot had won this year’s humanoid half-marathon at a pace faster than the elite human record. Its researchers had lengthened its legs by 10 centimetres ahead of the games, according to Chinese broadcasters. The 100 metres was one of 51 events, spanning football, dancing and industrial-task contests.
Nicknamed the Robot Olympics, the competition ran from 22 to 26 August, and, unlike the human Games, was dominated almost entirely by home-grown machines. This year’s edition added a new challenge for robotic hands, judging speed and accuracy in precision tasks such as tightening screws, opening bottles and picking up beads with tweezers, a shift that reflects the industry’s central problem of proving prototypes can work in the real world.
The robotic competitions have become a window into a rapidly advancing sector that the country has singled out as a strategic priority. Once a curiosity organised by academics and hobbyists, the games are now a national showcase celebrated by state media and increasingly a proving ground for commercial products. Policymakers and companies are betting that advances in artificial intelligence and hardware will speed the deployment of humanoid machines in manufacturing, logistics and everyday consumer settings.
