Tianzhuo, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center, completed the opening sprint of the second World Humanoid Robot Games with a mark of 9.58 seconds.
The second edition of the World Humanoid Robot Games opened on August 22, 2026 in Beijing, in the speed skating oval built for the 2022 Winter Olympics. On the first day, a robot called Tianzhuo, designed by the Beijing Innovation Centre of Humanoid Robotics, covered the 100 meters in 9.39 seconds, under the 9.58 seconds set by Usain Bolt in 2009. A human high jump record also fell during the competition.
The comparison deserves to be put into perspective: a racing robot is optimized for a straight trajectory on a prepared track, without the physiological constraints of an athlete, and the performance says something about the power of the actuators and the stability of the control. However, this is the first time that a bipedal machine has crossed this symbolic threshold in competition conditions.
The event took on a completely different scale than in 2025: 2,056 robots entered (an increase of 311%) for 666 teams, sixteen countries and regions represented, more than 1,300 matches spread over five days between thirty sports events and twenty professional simulation events. Chinese domination remains overwhelming, with about 96% of the participants.
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