A Chinese humanoid robot shattered Usain Bolt's world record in the 100 meters

The macro scenario of global technological vanguard The race for global technological development has reached a new milestone during the celebration of the World Robotics Conference 2026, where companies in the sector showcased nearly 3,000 cutting-edge products.

This event coincided with the second edition of the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, a large-scale competition that brought together 2,056 automatons from 666 teams across 16 countries and six continents at the National Speed Skating Oval.

The event, which includes 51 disciplines ranging from athletics and soccer to table tennis and industrial tasks, demonstrates an exponential acceleration compared to the previous year, when only 280 teams participated.

The fall of human limits in high-performance athletics In this context of coordinated deployment, athletics disciplines became the epicenter of the day by breaking historical records that belonged to athletes of our own species.

Among the most notable feats, the Beijing-based company X-Humanoid achieved a record of 2.88 meters in high jump with one of its models.

This figure far exceeds the human record of 2.45 meters set by Cuban Javier Sotomayor in 1993, as well as the modest mark of 0.95 meters recorded by an automaton in the 2025 edition of the tournament.

The sprint feat: Tiangong Ultra and Lightning in the 100 meters The pinnacle of precision and speed was concentrated on the speed track, where the humanoid robot Tiangong Ultra clocked a historic time of 9.39 seconds in a preliminary heat of the 100 meters.

With this record, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, the machine officially surpassed the record of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who held the human world record with 9.58 seconds since 2009.

Tiangong Ultra's victory was solidified in the final meters after an intense comeback against Lightning, a model developed by the telecommunications company Honor, which finished with an also extraordinary time of 9.47 seconds.

The technical details of progress and industrial evolution The performance progression of these platforms in just one year reveals the pace of high-tech manufacturing evolution: in the 2025 edition, Tiangong Ultra itself had won the same event with a significantly higher time of 21.50 seconds.

Meanwhile, the runner-up Lightning had already achieved a previous milestone by completing a humanoid half marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds in April.

The researchers behind Lightning detailed that for this competition in Beijing, they increased the length of the automaton's legs from 95 centimeters to 1.05 meters to enhance its performance.

Additionally, state media such as CCTV reported that this model had achieved preparatory test times of up to 9.32 seconds, recording a maximum speed of 14.5 meters per second, confirming the qualitative leap of technology applied to physical optimization