Chinese humanoid robot beats Usain Bolt's sprint record

The second World Humanoid Robot Games opened at Beijing's National Speed Skating Oval, drawing 666 teams and 2,056 robots from 16 countries and regions across six continents, up from 280 teams at the first edition. The programme runs 51 events, split between 30 competitive sports and 21 scenario-based challenges covering tasks such as industrial assembly, home services and emergency response, spread across 1,301 matches over five days.

Among the opening-day results, a humanoid robot built by smartphone maker Honor ran the 100 metres faster than Usain Bolt's decade-old world record of 9.58 seconds, and a second robot broke the human high jump record. This year's expanded scenario-based programme reflects a shift in emphasis from the first Games, held mainly to showcase athletic feats, toward tasks meant to resemble commercial deployment.

A robot beating a world sprint record says more about drivetrain and battery engineering than locomotion intelligence, and the scenario-based events are the better measure of what these machines can do unscripted.