Humanoid robot runs 100 meters in 9.39 seconds, beating Usain Bolt's record
Tiangong Ultra, built by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, ran the 100-meter dash in 9.39 seconds at the World Humanoid Robot Games, ahead of Honor's Lightning at 9.47 and past Bolt's 9.58 human mark from 2009 — the same machine needed 21.5 seconds at last year's inaugural games. The gain is real on straight-line speed and nowhere else: none of the robots could decelerate, so they ran into pads at the finish and some had to be carried off.
Source: engadget.com ↗
After their sprints, they slammed directly into pads and some even required human assistance to be stretchered off the course.
Engadget
Why this matters
- → Robot speed doubled in one year, accelerating hardware timeline forecasts
- → Deceleration failures expose real limits in current humanoid designs
- → Record-chasing incentivizes engineering progress but masks practical gaps
Speed theater