The Humanoids at China’s Robot Games Were Faster Than Usain Bolt—but I’m More Impressed by Their Tweezer Mastery

The event, held in China, showcases the latest humanoid hardware, lots of algorithmic innovations, and a good dose of robot slapstick. This year’s iteration, which wrapped up in Beijing on August 26, did not disappoint. Besides record-breaking feats—the fastest humanoid on the planet!—and the occasional calamity—weightlifting gone wrong!—the games also included some new challenges that hint at the event’s real purpose: pushing humanoid companies to develop systems that inch closer and closer to practical deployment.

First, though, let’s marvel at some of the more dramatic happenings, which have been all over the internet since things kicked off on August 22. The opening ceremony showcased the sheer size of the event—the organizers say that more than 600 teams showed up with over 2,000 robots. There are more than 100 humanoid robot manufacturers in China alone, and participants also traveled in from 15 other countries.

The games featured a mix of contests and competitions, and some saw judges scoring a robot’s performance. Witness the Tiangong Ultra, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation ​Center, running the 100-meter dash in 8.86 seconds. Another robot called Lightning, from the smartphone maker Honor, ran the distance in 9.47 seconds a few days earlier.

Both times beat the (human) world record set by Usain Bolt. The Tiangong robot also won the long jump with a sprawl of 7.97 meters. Another company’s robot, meanwhile, played Ping Pong against an Olympic champ.

Elsewhere, bots punched each other, scored soccer goals, lifted weights (or tried to), and performed cheerleading routines in silly costumes. Part of the fun stems from the fact that it’s easy to anthropomorphize a humanoid robot’s actions, which tends to make their mishaps particularly funny. Take, for instance, the robot that appeared distracted by a cheerleading display, then tumbled over a balustrade.

The fact that the robots on show struggled to stop—sometimes blowing out their motors in the process—also shows how the systems are being pushed to their physical limits. Practical Applications Humanoids have been around for decades, but the past few years have seen the development of compact, high-power motors capable of keeping robots dynamically balanced at high speeds. Unitree, which spun up in the high-tech city of Hangzhou and recently went public, rose to fame by focusing on these innovations.