The World Humanoid Robot Games, a five-day event that concluded this week in Beijing, showcased both dramatic robot failures and striking technological progress, underlining China's determination to lead the global humanoid robotics race. Alongside spectacular mishaps, such as robots losing limbs, catching fire and toppling into judges' tables, the competition revealed genuine leaps in hardware performance, even as many everyday tasks proved far harder for the machines than athletic feats.

This was only the second edition of the games, held at Beijing's former Olympic National Speed Skating Oval, and it far surpassed last year's inaugural event in scale and results. One robot completed the 100-metre sprint in 9.39 seconds, beating Usain Bolt's world record, while another achieved a standing high jump of 2.88 metres, nearly half a metre above the human record. Beyond sporting events, robots competed in practical tasks such as bed-making, parcel delivery and shelf-stacking, some using autonomous control and others aided by teleoperation, highlighting how far humanoid robots still have to go before they can reliably perform useful real-world work.