Here's a sentence you don't hear every day: a humanoid robot just outran the fastest human in history. At the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Saturday, a machine named Tiangong Ultra clocked 9.39 seconds in the 100-meter preliminary heat, edging Usain Bolt's 9.58-second world record set back in 2009. But the victory lap didn't go as planned.
After crossing the finish line, Tiangong stumbled toward the sidelines and crashed into a padded barrier designed to stop runaway robots. Not to be outdone, Honor's robot, Lightning, finished second at 9.47 seconds, also beating Bolt's mark, before collapsing and being carried away on a stretcher. It's a reminder that even when machines beat humans, they still have their own version of pulling a hamstring.
Lightning had a better day in the longer race, winning the Beijing E-Town Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, which is faster than the men's human half-marathon world record of 57:20. So robots are now beating humans at both sprinting and endurance. The humans might want to start training.
This spectacle is part of a bigger story. Back in November 2023, China designated humanoid robots as a strategic industry, betting that advances in AI and hardware would make them useful in manufacturing and logistics. That bet is starting to pay off, at least in terms of investor enthusiasm. This week, shares of Unitree Robotics, China's leading humanoid robot maker, surged more than fivefold on their first day of trading in Shanghai, valuing the company at nearly $50 billion, according to Reuters.
The games themselves drew 2,056 robots from 666 teams across 16 countries, a huge jump from last year's 280 teams. It's a clear signal of how quickly this sector is scaling.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is taking a different tack. The Federal Communications Commission recently added foreign-made humanoid robots to its Covered List, barring new imports as it pushes for a domestic supply chain. So while China's robots are breaking records, they're also becoming a geopolitical flashpoint.
