Chinese Robot Tiangong Ultra Beats Usain Bolt's 100-Meter Record

BEIJING —

A Faster, Less Graceful Sprint

In a preliminary heat Saturday at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, a bipedal robot called Tiangong Ultra ran the 100 meters in 9.39 seconds, beating the 9.58-second world record that sprinter Usain Bolt set in 2009, The Verge reported. Honor's Lightning robot finished right behind at 9.47 seconds, according to The Verge.

Tiangong Ultra, built by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, also broke the men's 400-meter world record, completing the distance in 38.16 seconds, faster than the 43.03 seconds sprinter Wayde van Niekerk ran in 2016, The Verge reported.

Neither robot stuck the landing. Video from the event showed both machines barreling into cushioned pads because they can't slow themselves down, and some needed help from human handlers to be carried off the track, according to Engadget.

The times mark a sharp jump from last year. At the inaugural games in 2025, Tiangong Ultra won the 100-meter dash in 21.5 seconds, more than twice as slow as this year's run, Engadget reported.

Robots Take On A Half Marathon, Too

The World Humanoid Robot Games, now in its second year, opened August 22 in Beijing and runs through August 26, drawing 2,056 robots from 16 countries, according to The Verge. Beyond track and field, the games include soccer, boxing, table tennis and jumping competitions, Engadget reported.

Honor's Lightning robot also competed in a Beijing half marathon organized to let Chinese companies show off their machines' endurance. It won gold with a time of 50 minutes and 26 seconds, which Engadget reported also beat a human record, though the outlet did not name the runner or time it surpassed. That race, too, had its share of crashes.

Neither outlet reported whether any of the competing robots are headed toward commercial use. For now, the games function largely as a showcase, one where the machines can outrun world-class sprinters but still can't manage to stop.