Chinese language humanoid robots broke information set by people, together with beating Usain Bolt’s 100-meter dash world document, on the opening day of the Olympics-like World Humanoid Robotic Video games in Beijing on Saturday (August 22, 2026).
Greater than 2,000 humanoid robots had been taking part within the occasion, the organiser mentioned.
The five-day video games, now in its second yr, are a spectacle demonstrating China’s fast progress in superior robotics because the know-how race with the U.S. heats up, with 51 occasions and greater than 1,000 competitions going down together with working, desk tennis and soccer.
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The video games, that are going down within the Nationwide Velocity Skating Oval constructed for the 2022 Winter Olympics, opened the identical week as Beijing held the 2026 World Robotic Convention, the place corporations showcased round 3,000 merchandise, together with humanoid robots.
China makes nearly all of the world’s humanoid robots. The U.S. has stepped up scrutiny of robots from the nation.
Final month, the U.S. Federal Communications Fee introduced a ban on imports of recent foreign-made humanoid robots. The FCC cited nationwide safety causes in a transfer that focused China. The Pentagon not too long ago additionally added Unitree, one in every of China’s main humanoid robotic makers, to its record of corporations that it deemed have ties with the Chinese language navy. Beijing has hit again on the accusations.
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At Saturday’s (August 22, 2026) opening of the robotic video games, the organiser and robotic makers mentioned that Chinese language humanoid robots defeated human world information, as lots of of humanoid robots marched in formation onto the sphere in a large show of synchronized coordination.
At a 100-meter dash, a humanoid robotic achieved a results of 9.39 seconds, beating the human document of 9.58 seconds set by Jamaican athlete Bolt in 2009.
In a standing excessive soar, a humanoid robotic was in a position to attain 2.88 meters, nicely above the 0.95 meters greatest end result by a humanoid in final yr’s first version of the video games. It surpassed the human excessive soar document of two.45 meters set by Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor in 1993.
A Tiangong Extremely humanoid robotic demonstrates a 2.88m standing excessive soar in the course of the opening ceremony for the second World Humanoid Robotic Video games on the Nationwide Velocity Skating Oval in Beijing, China, on August 22, 2026.
| Photograph Credit score:
Reuters
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Each robots had been from Beijing-based X-Humanoid.
Earlier than the opening, a humanoid robotic from Chinese language smartphone firm Honor accomplished a 100-meter dash in a document of 9.32 seconds throughout a trial of the video games, the corporate mentioned, at a peak velocity of 14.5 meters per second.
Nonetheless, specialists say humanoid robots are nonetheless largely used for demonstrations, performances and analysis — not less than for now — and it’ll nonetheless take time to attain mass real-world deployment.
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Some spectators on the robotic video games mentioned they had been excited in regards to the humanoid robots’ rapidly bettering skills.
Humanoid robots are “evolving quickly,” mentioned Li Yanfeng, an training employee and a Beijing resident.
“At first, I wasn’t very accepting of synthetic intelligence. I used to be even a bit proof against it, due to the chance that it would exchange or displace people,” she mentioned. “However now that I see this growth is unstoppable, I made a decision to return and have a look.”
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“These sports activities are completely regular for people, however now robots can do them. I discover it superb,” mentioned Yang Shangzheng, one other spectator.
Liu Tao, who was watching the video games together with his son, mentioned that he hoped to see “the very best robots China at the moment has to supply.”
This yr’s robotic video games — which the organizer mentioned has 16 nations taking part, amongst them Germany, Japan and the U.S. — additionally embrace different occasions equivalent to weightlifting and tug of struggle.
Printed – August 23, 2026 10:54 am IST
