Humanoid robots shatter Usain Bolt’s 100m record, hits 23.8 mph before crashing into foam pads — video shows Tiangong Ultra logging 9.39-second sprint before colliding with padded wall
Two Chinese humanoid robots just beat the record of the world’s fastest human in the 100-meter dash. According to Reuters, Tiangong Ultra achieved a record time of 9.39 seconds in the race, while Honor’s Lightning came in at a close second, with a time of 9.47 seconds. These are 0.19 and 0.11 seconds faster than Usain Bolt’s 9.58-second record, which he set in 2009 at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany. This gives the Tiangong Ultra an average speed of 23.83 mph or 38.34 kph, which is just marginally faster than Bolt’s 23.35 mph or 37.58 kph. The robots set the records at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, which has been held annually starting last year.
It may seem odd that we’re celebrating a robot speed record when the world’s fastest quarter mile is just 3.22 seconds, but we must remember that these are autonomously running bipedal robots. This “form factor” is certainly more challenging to build compared to machines running on four wheels or legs. Despite that, the teams behind these machines greatly improved their projects in such a limited time. To put things into context, the Tiangong Ultra also won the 100-meter race last year, but at a relative snail’s pace of 21.50 seconds. By comparison, Donald Lippincott set the first 100-meter world record in 1912 with a time of 10.6 seconds at the Stockholm Olympics. That means that it only took the machines one year to cut their time by more than 12 seconds, but it took humans nearly 100 years to shave the world record by a little over a second.
While these machines are certainly fast, with the Lightning reportedly achieving a 9.32-second unofficial time during practice runs, they still lack the finesse of human runners like Bolt. A few meters after these robots crossed the finish line, they slammed directly onto a foam pad, with the winning Ultra redirecting itself towards the right off the camera frame while the Lightning seemingly lost control and eventually fell helplessly towards the left. A third robot, which was a couple of seconds behind the faster two units, attempted to slow down by sliding forward before it crumpled itself on the massive cushion. They probably need to teach themselves how to end a race gracefully, much like how Nvidia’s AI robots taught themselves how to install GPUs on mobos.
Aside from this 100-meter dash, there are 51 other competitions during this five-day event, including boxing, football, dancing, and industrial-task contests. Reuters reports that 2,056 robots across 666 teams have registered for the games, with representatives from 16 countries from every corner of the world. These robots might not yet be ready for at-scale deployments in industrial, commercial, or residential uses, but events like this show that they’re beginning to become more than capable of doing many different things. But as for the two fastest robots, it’s unlikely that they’ll become available in the U.S. because of the FCC’s ban on foreign-made robots.
