Faster than Usain Bolt? Here's all the records robot 'athletes' broke at this year's World Humanoid Robot Games in China.
Humanoid robots in Beijing have beaten a number of men's athletics world records at the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games, claiming high-water marks in the 100-meter sprint, the 400 m, 1,500 m and high jump.
While these performances aren't official replacements for the human records, as the robots competed under robot-specific categories and conditions, they highlight the progress made since last year's inaugural robot games .
The five-day games were held between Aug.
22nd and 26 at Beijing’s National Speed Skating Oval and drew 2,056 robots from 666 teams across 16 countries.
The events included sports like football and martial arts, as well as practical applications like warehouse logistics, factory-style assembly and charging tasks.
Robots broke four human athletics records: 100 meters : Tiangong Ultra, 8.64 seconds Human benchmark : Usain Bolt ran 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin.
Robot result : Tiangong Ultra is a humanoid robot developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center.
It won the large-size 100 m final, completing it in 8.64 seconds on Aug.
26.
It set an early mark of 9.39 seconds, already enough to smash Bolt's record, then improved to 8.86 seconds in qualifying before the blistering 8.64 time in the final.
That 8.64-second time is 0.94 seconds below Bolt’s mark.
The Tiangong Ultra robot running. (Image credit: X-Humanoid) 400 meters : Tiangong Ultra, 38.15 seconds Human benchmark : Wayde van Niekerk's 43.03 seconds, set at the Rio Olympics on Aug.
14, 2016.
Robot result : The same robot that set the 100 m record dominated the 400 m competition as well.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on www.livescience.com — the content belongs to Live Science.