A Chinese humanoid robot named Tiangong Ultra has shattered Usain Bolt’s 100m world record at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. The machine completed the sprint in just 9.39 seconds, beating Bolt’s famous 9.58-second mark from the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin.
Two robots beat Bolt’s record
Tiangong Ultra, built by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, won the race on Saturday. It initially trailed Honor’s Lightning robot but surged past near the finish line. Lightning clocked 9.47 seconds, meaning both humanoid machines ran faster than Bolt’s historic record.
Massive improvement from last year
Last year Tiangong Ultra needed 21.50 seconds for the same distance. The latest time is over 12 seconds faster. This dramatic leap highlights rapid progress in humanoid robotics. Earlier this year Tiangong Ultra won the world’s first humanoid half-marathon in Beijing. Lightning recorded 9.32 seconds in testing with a top speed of 14.5 meters per second. It also finished the humanoid half-marathon in 50 minutes 26 seconds, beating the men’s elite world-record pace.
Physical upgrades drive performance
Lightning received a major hardware boost before the games. During the half-marathon it stood 169 cm tall with 95 cm leg length. Chinese broadcaster CCTV reported researchers added 10 cm to its legs for the competition. This race marks a new chapter in China’s fast-growing humanoid robot sector, viewed as a strategic industry by companies and policymakers.
China bets big on humanoid robots
Advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and hardware are expected to drive factory, logistics and consumer adoption. Investor enthusiasm is surging. Unitree shares jumped more than fivefold during their Shanghai trading debut this week, pushing market valuation to nearly 50 billion dollars.
Games expand dramatically
The first World Humanoid Robot Games featured 280 teams. This edition includes 666 teams from 16 countries across six continents with 2056 robots. Events at Beijing’s National Speed Skating Oval span 51 categories from sprinting and football to dancing and industrial tasks. As Tiangong Ultra’s 9.39-second sprint proves, the human-machine race has left science fiction behind.
