After outrunning Bolt, China’s robot champion races towards real-world work
The goal underscores the harder task facing the robotics industry as it struggles to turn dazzling demonstrations into useful workers.
Jack Guo, an engineer who leads the development of Tiangong Ultra, stands among Tiangong Ultra and Tiangong Omni humanoid robots at the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, also known as X-Humanoid, in Beijing on Sept. 4. | REUTERS
Sep 10, 2026
A week after his robot outran humanity’s fastest man, Jack Guo is already chasing a harder goal.
TianGong Ultra stunned spectators at the World Humanoid Robot Games when it covered 100 meters in 8.64 seconds, almost a full second faster than Usain Bolt’s world record. Behind the feat were days of round-the-clock testing and repairing battered robots between races.
“When it started smoothly and got past 50 meters, that was when I finally relaxed,” said Guo, who leads development of Ultra and Omni, a smaller model used in 400m races, at the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre, known as X-Humanoid.
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