Beijing hosts the second World Humanoid Robot Games

The second World Humanoid Robot Games ran in Beijing from 22 to 26 August 2026, a five-day event in which humanoid robots competed in athletics, football, dance, martial arts and staged “scenario” tasks such as hotel service, industrial work and rescue. Organised by the Beijing municipal government and China Media Group with the World Robot Cooperation Organization, it drew a reported 666 teams fielding more than 2,000 machines across 51 events — roughly quadruple the 280 teams and 500-odd robots of the inaugural 2025 games.

The marquee results came in the sprints. X-Humanoid’s Tiangong Ultra, a robot built by Beijing’s state-backed humanoid-robot innovation centre, won the 100-metre final in a reported 8.64 seconds, having lowered the games’ own mark several times over the week from an opening 9.39 seconds. The time is below Usain Bolt’s 9.58-second human world record, though the comparison is more spectacle than like-for-like: the robots run a purpose-built, obstacle-free lane and are engineered for the task rather than competing under athletics rules. Tiangong also took the 400 metres, the 1,500 metres and a 2.88-metre high jump.

The failures were as widely reported as the records. After crossing the line in one sprint, Tiangong struck a stopping mat and collapsed, with coverage describing a small fire in its torso; in a semi-final another machine disassembled mid-race. Across the programme robots tripped, broke apart or required human operators, a reminder that controlled sprints and choreographed routines are some distance from reliable work in unstructured settings.

The games doubled as a showcase for China’s humanoid-robotics industry, which the government has designated a strategic sector with a target of a world-class supply chain by 2027. Unitree, which had swept the track events at the 2025 games, was upstaged this year by Tiangong and newer entrants — days after its Shanghai listing on 19 August, where the shares closed up roughly fivefold on their first session, valuing the company at about $53bn. The event drew heavy state-media coverage as evidence of that industrial push, alongside sceptics who noted how much of the performance remained brittle.