Chinese Humanoid Robot Completes 100 Metres in 9.39 Seconds

A humanoid robot developed in China ran 100 metres in 9.39 seconds on August 22 at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. The time beats the 9.58-second human record set by Usain Bolt in 2009.

Tiangong Ultra, built by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, won its preliminary heat. It overtook another Chinese robot, Lightning from smartphone maker Honor, near the finish. Lightning clocked 9.47 seconds, also faster than Bolt.

The results mark a sharp jump from the inaugural games last year, when Tiangong Ultra won the same event in 21.50 seconds. More than 2,000 robots from 666 teams across 16 countries are competing in the five-day event.

Both robots finished by slamming into a thick safety mat. Tiangong Ultra stumbled into the sidelines. Lightning collapsed and was carried away on a stretcher. The machines lacked the stride efficiency of human sprinters but demonstrated sustained high speed under competitive conditions.

Earlier the same day, state media reported that Lightning had run 100 metres in 9.32 seconds in a preparatory test, reaching a peak of 14.5 metres per second. Lightning also won this year's humanoid half-marathon in 50 minutes 26 seconds.

The games include 51 events ranging from football and dancing to industrial tasks. Organisers present the competition as a showcase of China's progress in advanced robotics at a time of intensifying technological competition with the United States.

The performance supplies a concrete data point on the pace of improvement in bipedal locomotion systems. Whether these speeds transfer to practical outdoor or industrial settings remains an open question that subsequent trials will need to answer.