A humanoid ran 100 metres in 9.32 seconds in Beijing

TianGong Ultra, built by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, which trades as X-Humanoid, ran 100 metres in 9.32 seconds at the second World Humanoid Robot Games on 22 August 2026, in the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing. Usain Bolt’s human world record, set in Berlin in 2009, is 9.58 seconds.

The single time matters less than the session around it. By X-Humanoid’s account the robot record was reset five times in two hours, and six teams finished under 9.58 seconds: 9.32, 9.32, 9.34, 9.38, 9.39 and 9.42, the last belonging to a team fielding Honor’s Lightning. At the inaugural games a year earlier the winning 100 metres took 21.50 seconds.

The comparison to Bolt is the wrong frame, and the games invite it anyway. A sprinting robot runs a fixed distance in a straight line on a prepared surface with no opponent to react to, which is a control problem, not an athletic one. The same event’s emergency-response final last week sent twelve humanoids into a working fire brigade and three finished.

What the sprint does measure is how fast that control problem is being solved: a factor of two in twelve months, by more than one team at once.