Humanoid robot runs 100m faster than Usain Bolt's human record

sportsAug 22, 202623372

A humanoid robot developed by the Beijing Innovation Centre of Humanoid Robotics ran 100 metres in 9.39 seconds at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, beating Usain Bolt's human world record of 9.58 seconds set in 2009. Chinese state media reported the robot reached a peak speed of 14.5 metres per second. Organizers say more than 2,000 humanoid robots are competing at the Beijing event across dozens of Olympic-style and household-skill contests, including boxing and football. The developer Honor also says a robot it built covered 100 metres in 9.32 seconds in a test run, and BBC coverage noted the 9.39 time occurred at the games. The results underline rapid advances in legged humanoid speed at an industry showcase, while the event continues with other competitive and domestic-task trials for robots from multiple teams.

mtsw

@mtsw.bsky.social

an underrated reason that the tech oligarchs are so invested in the humanoid robot space is that they have sick fantasies about having apocalypse bunkers with harems of women but can't solve the "bane problem" www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C_B...

1573h ago

mtsw83

for a while they would float elaborate schemes with BATTLE ROYALE-style exploding collars but the armed humanoid robot thing is a much more straightforward solution for their sick desires to enslave human beings without risking being overthrown by jocks.

🅒🅗🅡🅘🅢 🍫 🍫 🍫 🤯6

Not your point but man rises was so much weaker than TDK but this “do you feel in charge” scene was such an extremely good moment

Nicholas Slayton4

I did like how UNDER THE SILVER LAKE implied that the billionaires with their harems and bunkers would just starve and go insane and die while trapped there.

Krinn DNZ4

Always thinking of the Rushkoff bit about "How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?" (I should read the book he spun out of this) onezero.medium.com/survival-of-...

Andrew MF Reynolds2

I have extremely mixed feelings about this movie and this is the one moment i keep coming back to and saying "yeah that fuckin ruled"

Daniel Ahmad

@zhugeex.com

For those unaware, the World Humanoid Robot Games is currently ongoing in Beijing where over 2,000 robots are competing across 51 events. It’s basically a way to benchmark / stress test current performance levels.

583h ago

Daniel Ahmad58

I still don’t get why a Tennis robot wouldn’t just be on wheels / a moving platform or something, but this is still technically impressive given where humanoid robots were just two years ago.

roscone5

I was not ready for that thing to jump that high

Kamiten, Cursed Feral Clown1

So it's kind of like the Le Mans of Robotics?

Quoting this

Greg Pak50

gimme a baseball bat and let’s DO THIS

Tyler King19

Isn’t Elon’s Optimus basically still just a guy in a suit?

Fabio Santana2

Just a bit more until we have real-life Power Spikes II: youtu.be/aPlo5xbur2k

Unusual Whales

@unusualwhales.bsky.social

BREAKING: A humanoid robot developed by China’s Beijing Innovation Center of Humanoid Robotics ran 100 meters in 9.39 seconds, beating the human world record held by Jamaican sprinting great Usain Bolt, per Reuters

382h ago

A normal man22

My car can go faster than that

Patrick3

Couldn’t step up on the podium though.

Magma Doctor2

A human on a bike can go faster than that and doesn’t need a motor or a computer

Fawkes News Channel2

I'm sure trump will call them trans-former athletes and ban them from competing in sports. I'll see myself out.

JessC2

looks like they're coming for the athlete's jobs too.

Anthony Soto1

It ran straight into a pad and then blew up btw

Quoting this

NBABeau15

I believe machines built by BMW, Porsche, and even Kia are faster than Usain Bolt too

Coronel Cocos6

Eine Maschine ist schneller als ein Mensch, waow.

Ryan Wilson4

Then it ran straight into a brick wall and caught fire.

Dan2

This is what those losers who started The Enhanced Games thought would happen.

altNOAA 🇺🇸

@altnoaa.bsky.social

"A Chinese humanoid robot ran 100 metres in 9.39 seconds in a preliminary heat at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Saturday, faster than the men's world record held by Jamaican sprinting great Usain Bolt." Maybe we can stop with the clumsy jokes. These are war machines.

111h ago

John Walker - Industry Analcyst

@botherer.bsky.social

These people excited that the robot ran faster than Usain Bolt are going to LOSE THEIR MINDS when they find out about cars.

186h ago

Running Dog

@runningdog.bsky.social

My dog’s run 500m in under 30 seconds many times, do we get a medal www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/a...

62h ago

Frühlingsopfer

@pille.bsky.social

„Roboter schneller als Usain Bolt“ bro ein AUTO ist literally auch schneller als Usain Bolt ??

112h ago

Lord Jeffrey of Nottingham #FBPE 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 🇬🇱

@onemoregoodman.bsky.social

So what? This is like saying a motorbike or a car could go faster than Usain Bolt. It’s a machine, not a person.

84h ago

Joanna Bryson

@j2bryson.bsky.social

Chinese robot beats Usain Bolt's 100m world record The Chinese humanoid robot "Lightning" ran a 100-meter trial race faster than human world-record holder Usain Bolt. A year ago, humanoid robots struggled to finish a race. www.dw.com/en/chinese-r...

84h ago

Joanna Bryson4

Okay, this is becoming a faq — If you read the article, what’s interesting is only a year ago they couldn’t even complete the task. Bipedal locomotion is hard. Also, I still can’t think of a non military application for this tech.

Daniel P. Ferris4

Video of race. Good at running, not so great at stopping www.bbc.com/news/videos/...

Dr Emma L Briant 🇬🇧 in 🇺🇸 w/ 🐕1

Now they just burst into flames

Eerke Boiten1

I'm not sure why a robot is even being compared to a human runner. We've known for a long time that machines can be faster than humans, does it really matter whether they can be faster with higher degrees of mimicry?

Quoting this

Adolfo Neto4

Pay attention to how the race starts. The robot didn't do that.

James Andrew Smith

@drsmith.bsky.social

Bingo. Legged locomotion engineer here — name me a task that you dream of a humanoid robot doing and I’ll find an alternative automaton that will do faster, cheaper and better.

71h ago

Sodslawyer

@sodslawyer.bsky.social

I see that a robot has run 100m in a faster time than the record for a human, held by Usain Bolt. Ok if we’re going down that route, I can - and have - run 100m faster than a courgette has ever done.

51h ago

Ranked News

@rankednews.bsky.social

🚨 Chinese Robot Breaks Usain Bolt's 100-Meter Dash Record For daily global news videos, please visit Ranked.News/videos

53h ago

Bucks County Beacon

@buckscountybeacon.com

The End Is Near? Chinese Humanoid Robots Smash Human Records in 100m Sprint and High Jump at Beijing Robot Games | This year’s robot games—which the organizer said has 16 countries participating, among them Germany, Japan and the U.S.—also include other events such as weightlifting and tug of war.

32h ago

Quoting this