Tiangong Ultra ran the 100 metres in 8.86 seconds on 25 August, in a semifinal at the second World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. The time beat Usain Bolt’s 2009 world record of 9.58 seconds by more than seven tenths of a second, and lowered the robot’s own mark of 9.39 seconds, set three days earlier at the same event. The robot was developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre, which says its machines have now beaten four human world records at these Games, including a 400 metre time of 38.15 seconds.
After crossing the line, Tiangong hit the thick mat positioned to stop sprinting robots, collapsed on impact, and a small fire appeared in its torso. The Games continued around it. A rival, Honor’s Lightning, had run a semifinal 9.47 seconds and a 9.32 second test time earlier in the competition, keeping the large size division genuinely contested rather than a one machine show.
More than 2,000 robots from 666 teams are competing across 51 events at the Games, pairing athletic contests against scenario based tasks set in homes, hospitals and industrial sites. The sprint times are the kind of number that travels well, a robot beating Bolt is a headline in a way that a robot bussing a hotel room tray is not, and Chinese state media has leaned into the comparison directly.
What the stopwatch does not capture is what a fire on impact says about how narrowly these machines are built for the task in front of them. A sprinting robot optimised to a straight line and a padded stop is a different problem to one that can fold laundry or carry a stretcher, and the Games’ scenario events, still running through 26 August, are where that gap will show.
