Chinese robot beats Usain Bolt's 100-meter sprint world record in humanoid bot games
China Humanoid Robot Games At Saturday's opening of the robot games, the organizer and robot makers said that Chinese humanoid robots defeated human world records, as hundreds of humanoid robots marched in formation onto the field in a massive display of sy...
Key takeaways
- Humanoid robots are again making headlines after a Beijing demonstration on August 25, 2026 in which a Chinese robot completed the 100‑metre sprint in just 8.86 seconds, shattering the previous human record and even beating earlier robot times reported at 9.39 seconds. The same event featured a robot high‑jump of 2.88 metres, surpassing the human world record of 2.45 metres, and a half‑marathon run that outpaced the best human time. The showcase, part of the second World Humanoid Robot Games, attracted more than 2,000 robots and drew global media attention.
- Meanwhile, Chinese robotics firm Unitree Robotics, the maker of several of the record‑setting machines, saw its Shanghai IPO surge more than 460 percent on debut and is now forecasting annual humanoid shipments of about 50,000 units for 2026, up from 12,000 in 2025. Despite the rapid progress, Unitree’s founder Wang Xingxing cautioned that humanoid robots may still be a decade away from achieving a “ChatGPT moment,” noting that current systems struggle to generalise across unfamiliar tasks and to execute precise movements.
China Humanoid Robot Games
At Saturday's opening of the robot games, the organizer and robot makers said that Chinese humanoid robots defeated human world records, as hundreds of humanoid robots marched in formation onto the field in a massive display of synchronized coordination.
Last month, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on imports of new foreign-made humanoid robots. The FCC cited national security reasons in a move that targeted China. The Pentagon recently also added Unitree, one of China's leading humanoid robot makers, to its list of companies that it deemed have ties with the Chinese military. Beijing has hit back at the accusations. Watch CBS News
August 23, 2026 / 1:40 AM EDT / CBS/AP
A humanoid robot has beaten Usain Bolt's 100-meter sprint record at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, China on Saturday.
The robot, made by Beijing-based X-Humanoid, was able to run the 109 yards in 9.39 seconds, beating the 2009 record of 9.58 seconds set by the Jamaican athlete.
At the end of the 100-meter dash, the robots slammed into a cushion and fell to the ground in order to stop, footage from the event showed, before being carried out in stretchers.
China Humanoid Robot Games China currently leads in the production of humanoid robots, with some manufacturers there saying they have thousands of orders from both government and private businesses. However, some experts say this technology is still mostly used for demonstrations and performances and will take some time to achieve mass real-world deployment.
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