diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index f60e8f915..a59a20a7d 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ This project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](http://semver.org/).
 
 ### Changed
 
+- #807 - update Qemu to 6.1.0 on images using Ubuntu 18.04+ with python3.6+.
 - #775 - forward Cargo exit code to host
 - #762 - re-enabled `x86_64-unknown-dragonfly` target.
 - #747 - reduced android image sizes.
diff --git a/docker/qemu.sh b/docker/qemu.sh
index 9025dacb5..75626c55c 100755
--- a/docker/qemu.sh
+++ b/docker/qemu.sh
@@ -170,6 +170,15 @@ main() {
         libpixman-1-dev \
         libselinux1-dev \
         zlib1g-dev
+
+    # if we have python3.6+, we can install qemu 6.1.0, which needs ninja-build
+    # ubuntu 16.04 only provides python3.5, so remove when we have a newer qemu.
+    is_ge_python36=$(python3 -c "import sys; print(int(sys.version_info >= (3, 6)))")
+    if [[ "${is_ge_python36}" == "1" ]]; then
+        if_ubuntu version=6.1.0
+        if_ubuntu install_packages ninja-build
+    fi
+
     local td
     td="$(mktemp -d)"