The second edition of the World Humanoid Robot Games, where humanoid robots compete across various events, kicked off on the 22nd for a five-day run. This year's event has drawn even greater attention, with a significant increase in both participating robots and competition categories compared to last year. In the 100m sprint held on opening day, one participating robot clocked in at 9.39 seconds — a time that would even beat human world records.

		0
Scene from the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games, which opened in Beijing on the 22nd and will run for five days through the 26th. / Xinhua

According to a report by state news agency Xinhua on the 23rd, the second World Humanoid Robot Games kicked off the previous afternoon at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing, China. The competition brought together 666 teams and 2,056 robots from 16 countries, set to compete across 51 events comprising 1,301 total matches.

The competition is a comprehensive games-style event where robots compete simultaneously across multiple disciplines, with the first edition held last year as the world's first such event. This year's competition saw participating teams grow 138% from last year, while the number of robots increased fourfold.

New events have also been added. Beyond track and field, soccer, gymnastics, and martial arts, exciting matchups are also expected in events like tug-of-war, weightlifting, and table tennis. In particular, races such as the 400m, 1500m, and 4x100m relay will be conducted in fully autonomous mode, expected to raise the level of difficulty considerably.

Separate categories have also been organized to evaluate practical capabilities based on real-world scenarios, including household chores, hotel guest reception, industrial packaging and warehousing, emergency firefighting and rescue, hospital pharmacy work, and retail service at large supermarkets, with robots competing in these skill areas as well. Events testing fine motor dexterity — such as measuring powder, picking up beans with tweezers, and opening bottle caps — will also take place.

In the 100m sprint preliminaries held on the first day, one result even surpassed a human world record. In that preliminary heat, a robot from Team Tianzhuo crossed the finish line in 9.39 seconds, faster than the 9.58-second world record set by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt in 2009. This shattered the 21.50-second time set last year by "Tiangong Ultra," developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, which won the inaugural competition — a improvement of more than 10 seconds. This alone shows just how dramatically the capabilities of robots competing this year have improved.

Additionally, in a high jump demonstration held as a special event before the opening ceremony, a robot leapt to a height of nearly 3 meters, easily clearing the human world record of 2.45 meters.

Earlier, at the second Humanoid Robot Half Marathon held in April at Beijing's Yizhuang Economic and Technological Development Zone, the winning team posted a time of 50 minutes and 26 seconds — an improvement of roughly 1 hour and 50 minutes over the inaugural event.

                                                                                                          Hong Soon-do