At the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, China’s humanoid 100-meter record dropped to 9.39 seconds, according to the official Beijing results. On paper, that means a humanoid robot covered the distance faster than Usain Bolt.
X-Humanoid clocked 9.39 seconds. Honor’s humanoid robot Lightning reportedly reached 9.32 in testing and ran 9.47 in one heat, while Tiangong Ultra also posted 9.39 in a preliminary race. Put those times next to last year’s winning 21.50 and the jump is hard to miss: multiple 2026 robots were already under 9.5 seconds at an event that, according to the official Beijing results, featured more than 2,000 humanoids across 51 events.
If you follow humanoid robotics, this lands as a real speed milestone. Still, there’s a reason roboticists are skeptical. A flat track is much easier than a chaotic kitchen, an unfamiliar home, or folding laundry. Rodney Brooks has described these contests as heavy on publicity, and some of the race footage still showed robots needing crash mats after struggling to brake.
The result also lines up with China’s broader push against the US. Earlier this year there was a robot high-jump record, and in April Honor’s Lightning won the Beijing half-marathon in 50 minutes 26 seconds. Public competition is clearly speeding up the development of machines that are highly capable and highly visible, even if they still aren’t ready for practical deployment.
The race footage is online, and so are the official Beijing results.
Author: Arlin Fabaliña
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