Tiangong Ultra closes robot games with 100m in 8.64 seconds

Tiangong Ultra closed the second World Humanoid Robot Games by running 100 metres in 8.64 seconds in Wednesday's large-size final in Beijing — improving on the 8.86-second time the same robot posted in Tuesday's semifinal, when it crossed the line, hit a crash mat, collapsed and caught fire. No such incident was reported this time.

Built by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, Tiangong Ultra had already cut the winning time in this event from 21.50 seconds a year earlier down to 9.39 seconds at this year's opening heats, then to 8.86 seconds in the semifinal. Wednesday's 8.64 seconds was the latest in a week of records changing hands — Honor's Lightning robot ran 9.47 seconds in an earlier heat and reported a 9.32-second time in testing. Every one of those marks beat Usain Bolt's 9.58-second world record, set in Berlin in 2009.

That comparison, as before, is not like-for-like. Bolt's record was run by a person under World Athletics rules, starting from blocks and decelerating under his own control. Tiangong Ultra is a motor-driven machine competing under the robot games' own format — one that still needs a mat to stop, and that two days earlier needed to be carried off after catching fire.

The final was the last event of the five-day games, which drew more than 2,000 robots from 666 teams across 51 events, from football and dancing to industrial tasks. The innovation centre has said its robots have now bettered four human world marks — the sprint alongside a 400-metre time of 38.15 seconds, a 1,500-metre time of 2 minutes 21.64 seconds, and a 2.88-metre high jump — crediting the gains to upgraded joints, a lighter frame and a switch to map-based positioning instead of following a painted lane line.

China has designated humanoid robots a strategic emerging industry, and the innovation centre's shareholders include state-owned enterprises, investment funds, Baidu and Xiaomi's robotics unit, according to corporate data provider Qichacha. The centre frames the races as stress tests of hardware reliability rather than spectacle — a framing this week's clean final did more to support than Tuesday's smoking semifinal did.