The World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, China, was a true technological spectacle. One robot – a Tiangong Omni humanoid called Tiangong Ultra, built by Beijing’ s X-Humanoid – smashed sprint legend Usain Bolt’ s 9.58-second world record in the 100 metres, clocking a staggering 8.64 before slamming into a padded wall after the finish line.

The progress made since last year’ s inaugural meeting is striking, to say the least. In 2025, the winning 100-metre sprint dragged past 20 seconds, meaning humanoids and their creators have managed to slice the world-leading time in half – and then some.

Standing high jumps surged from a top mark of just 0.95 metres last year to an impressive 2.88 metres, reflecting rapid strides in hardware, battery output, cloud computing integration and thermal management across the industry.

144 October 2026