World Humanoid Robot Games 2026: what is happening in Beijing

The World Humanoid Robot Games are happening in Beijing this week, inside the Ice Ribbon, the speed-skating oval left over from the 2022 Winter Olympics. It is the second year of the meet. It runs 22–26 August 2026.

The organizer’s own count, reported by Xinhua and CGTN, is 2,056 humanoid robots and 666 teams from 16 countries. Almost all of them are Chinese. There are 51 events, some on a track and some meant to look like work: a hotel, a library, a fake home. Spectator tickets start at 98 yuan on Beijing’s official site.

On Saturday the organizer and the teams said a robot ran 100 meters in 9.39 seconds. Usain Bolt’s human record is 9.58, from 2009. Honor said one of its robots ran 9.32 in a trial before the opening. A standing high jump of 2.88 meters was also claimed, well above last year’s robot mark. We did not time those races. We are repeating what AP and the organizer reported.

By Monday the meet had a personality. Global Times says Tianjiao won the 400-meter obstacle in 4 minutes 11.44 seconds. AgiBot was second. Tiangong was third. The day before, Tien Kung Omni won a 400 with both hands up by its face, a gait people started calling the shy run. The engineers say the robot found that pose in simulation because swinging its arms overheated the shoulders. Galaxea won freestyle gymnastics. Table tennis is new this year: twelve teams, the same 1.73-meter body, and the organizer says nobody is holding a remote.

The Games have also been a reminder of how unfinished these machines still are. Days before the opening, a training clip went around of a runner hitting a padded wall at full speed. Mashable wrote it up. The robot folded at the waist and threw sparks. That is not a glitch at the edge of the meet. It is what a lot of these bodies still do when the path is not a perfect straight line.

In the fighting ring later in the week, Global Times watched robots take enough damage to lose an arm or a leg, stand back up, and then drift out of the arena because they had lost the other machine. The get-up is the part the teams want you to notice. The blank walk that follows is the part that stays with you.

Last year’s best 100 meters here was 21.5 seconds. This year’s times are in the nines. That is a real jump. A researcher told Global Times it still does not mean a robot can work an eight-hour shift. The oval is one kind of test. Everyday life is another.