Chinese Robot Tiangong Ultra Beats Usain Bolt’s 100m Time: Know Its Record, Technology

Chinese human-like robots have attracted attention following their participation in a 100-meter dash event where they beat Usain Bolt’s current world record for humans by running the distance in just 9.39 seconds, against 9.58 seconds of the Olympic gold medalist.

This incident brings to attention the fact that humanoid robotics technology has been developing very fast in certain aspects, like balance and self-locomotion among others. However, there is one significant factor that should be noted when comparing the two performances, and that is the fact that 9.39 seconds is a robot’s record, not a human record.

Tiangong Ultra Breaks Usain Bolt’s 100m Time

Tiangong Ultra covered the 100 metres distance in 9.39 seconds, beating Usain Bolt’s world record of 9.58 seconds achieved during 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin.

Tiangong Ultra was among those competing in the second World Humanoid Robot Games which took place in Beijing between August 22 and 26, 2026. The humanoid robot developed by Honor named Lightning also beat Usain Bolt’s record with 9.47 seconds.

The above achievements show how good the humanoid robots can be in keeping balance and creating quick movements during their run.

Who Is Tiangong Ultra?

Tiangong Ultra is a bipedal autonomous robot created by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center of China.

It shows a great improvement compared to last year results when the fastest 100 metres time of the first World Humanoid Robot Games was 21.50 seconds.

The fast progress made in one year shows how fast is developing the technology of the humanoid robots.

Tiangong Ultra: Key Facts

• Developer: Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center
• Country: China
• Category: Bipedal autonomous humanoid robot
• 100m time: 9.39 seconds
• Previous-year record: 21.50 seconds
• Competition: World Humanoid Robot Games 2026

What are World Humanoid Robot Games?

World Humanoid Robot Games will evaluate humanoid robots’ performance in the sphere of sports and real life situations. The 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games will be held in Beijing, National Speed Skating Oval, called the Ice Ribbon.

There are 2,056 humanoid robots from 666 teams of 16 countries that will participate in 51 competitions in 30 sports and 21 real-life challenges.

In sports competitions there will be 100-metre sprint, 400-metre run, 1,500-metre run, 4×100-metre relay, high jump, football and gymnastics.

In addition to demonstrating their skills, competitions of such type help to check whether robots can cope with challenging conditions connected with speed, balance, coordination and independent decision-making.

Usain Bolt Vs Tiangong Ultra: 100m Comparison

Usain Bolt holds the record for being the fastest human on earth, clocking 9.58 seconds on the 100-metre dash track since 2009.

Although Tiangong Ultra clocks a time of 9.39 seconds, both athletes belong to different categories altogether.

Comparison	Usain Bolt	Tiangong Ultra
Entity	Human athlete	Humanoid robot
Country	Jamaica	China
100m time	9.58 seconds	9.39 seconds
Year	2009	2026
Average speed	37.58 km/h	38.34 km/h
Type	Human sprinter	Bipedal robot

In an interesting comparison, Usain Bolt clocked 44.72 km/h speed compared to the 41 km/h speed reported by Tiangong Ultra.

Why is Tiangong Ultra’s Record So Important?

The importance of Tiangong Ultra lies in more than running at a higher speed than that of a human record.

For a robot to run on two legs, it has to maintain constant control over its center of gravity and coordination between joints and changes in momentum. In case there is any imbalance at all, it can easily lead to falling.

That the winning time of 21.50 seconds in 2025 reduced to 9.39 seconds in 2026 is indicative of great leaps in actuation, motion planning, artificial intelligence, balance control and robotic technology.