Humanoid Robot Runners Surpass Human Record
TienKung, a Chinese humanoid robot developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, ran 100 metres in 9.39 seconds in a race held on Saturday, August 22. With this result, the robot recorded a time faster than Usain Bolt’s 9.58-second world record set in Berlin in 2009. Lightning, produced by Honor, which finished second in the race, also surpassed the human record with a time of 9.47 seconds.
The races, held as part of the World Humanoid Robot Games at the Ice Ribbon Stadium in Beijing, the capital of China, revealed the pace of technical progress in the sector. While the winning time at last year’s inaugural event was around 21.50 seconds, it was observed that the robots had reduced their running times by more than half in just one year. Moments when the robots stopped after crashing into barrier mats at the end of the track attracted attention on social media; however, experts say that the fundamental progress has been made in software and balance algorithms.
Beijing Centre for humanoid Robotics produced TienKung, which today surpassed Usain Bolts’ 100m world record at WHRG. The robot ran 100m in 9.39s, compared with Bolt’s 9.58s record.
This is an extremely impressive achievement. The winning time last year was 21.50s.
In just 1 year, robots… pic.twitter.com/TO2wpUfEye
— World Humanoid Robot Games (@WHRGFUN) August 22, 2026
Multidisciplinary Field Tests and Technical Capacity
A total of 2 thousand 56 humanoid robots are competing in the organization across 666 teams from 16 different countries. At events held in 51 different disciplines, the robots demonstrate their abilities not only in athletics but also in branches such as boxing, football, weightlifting and gymnastics. It is stated that high-dynamic motion control, AI-based balancing mechanisms and advanced joint motors have led to a record-level increase in the robots’ acceleration capacity.
Industry Forecasts and Economic Dimension
The Chinese government’s funding and infrastructure support for humanoid robot technologies directly affects the market’s growth rate. Analysis reports published by Morgan Stanley Research indicate that the global humanoid robot market is expected to reach a size of 5 trillion dollars by 2050. According to the same projections, the number of active humanoid robots worldwide is expected to exceed 1 billion, with 302.3 million of them projected to operate within China’s borders alone.