BEIJING, China: The Tiangong Ultra 100m run clocked 8.64 seconds this week, beating Usain Bolt’s 9.58-second human world-record time while highlighting major differences between robotic and human sprinting.
The Chinese humanoid averaged nearly 42 kph during its fastest run, according to the performance reviewed by Reuters. Bolt set the official men’s 100m world record at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.
Sports scientists stressed that Tiangong’s performance does not represent a like-for-like athletic contest. The robot starts upright rather than using starting blocks, relying on electric motors, control software and mechanical joints instead of muscles and tendons.
Jung Moon-hyun, a sports science professor at South Korea’s Chungnam National University, described the run as a major technological advance in maintaining balance at speeds beyond human capability.
Watch how, in less than 3 years, China's humanoid robots🤖 have gone from stumbling steps to breaking human running records🏆 pic.twitter.com/1bw9Szq42u
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) August 26, 2026Tiangong’s developers said they reduced the weight of its torso and waist while improving motors, range of motion and control software. Reuters’ review of race footage showed the robot taking more than 50 short, rapid steps, compared with Bolt’s 41 strides during his record run.
Iain Hunter, professor of exercise science at Brigham Young University, estimated Bolt would have reached the five-metre mark almost two seconds ahead because of his superior start.
Read: Lightning Robot Runs 100m in 9.32 Seconds in Beijing
The robot gained ground later because it was not constrained by the same neuromuscular fatigue that slows human sprinters near the end of a race, biomechanics expert Matt Bundle of the University of Montana said.
Tiangong maintained speed through the finish of an earlier record run but then crashed into a padded wall. Researchers said future progress will depend not only on speed but also on braking, changing direction and making independent decisions while moving.
