A Chinese language humanoid robotic named Lightning has reportedly accomplished the 100-meter dash in 9.32 seconds, beating Usain Bolt’s long-standing world file.
Developed by smartphone maker Honor, the robotic reached a peak velocity of 14.5 meters per second throughout a check occasion in Beijing.
The efficiency got here forward of the second World Humanoid Robotic Video games (WHRG), which started on Saturday and options robots competing in numerous sporting occasions.
The second version of WHRG is slated to see participation surge 138 p.c from final yr, whereas the variety of robots competing has doubled this yr.
Robotic beats Bolt
A Chinese language humanoid robotic named Lightning has reportedly accomplished the 100-meter dash in 9.32 seconds, beating the boys’s world file held by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. In accordance with experiences, Honor’s robotic reached a peak velocity of 14.5 meters per second throughout a check occasion forward of the second WHRG in Beijing.
Lightning’s reported time is 0.26 seconds quicker than Bolt’s 9.58-second world file, set on the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin. The efficiency highlights the rising deal with velocity, steadiness and autonomous motion as Chinese language firms and researchers push humanoid robots into more and more demanding bodily duties, as reported by the Guardian.
Earlier within the preliminary spherical, one other Chinese language humanoid robotic reportedly ran the 100 meters quicker than Usain Bolt’s world file. Tiangong Extremely, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robotic Innovation Heart, clocked 9.39 seconds within the qualifying race at WHRG.
Throughout trials, a humanoid robotic crashed dramatically right into a padded barrier at WHRG. Footage shared on-line reveals the unidentified biped sprinting at excessive velocity earlier than apparently failing to decelerate close to the top of the indoor monitor. The impression brought about the robotic to buckle sharply on the waist and collapse ahead, whereas sparks flew from its body.
Honor’s velocity machine
Honor’s Lightning is a specialised high-performance humanoid robotic designed to push the bounds of bipedal velocity, endurance, and autonomous motion. Fairly than serving as a general-purpose machine, Lightning is engineered round long-distance working, real-time navigation and high-speed movement management.
In April 2026, Lightning reportedly grew to become the primary humanoid robot to beat the human half-marathon world file, finishing the 13-mile (21-kilometer) Beijing E-City race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds whereas working autonomously. A second, remotely managed unit completed in 48 minutes and 19 seconds, demonstrating the platform’s mechanical capabilities.
Lightning stands 169cm tall and makes use of an efficient 95cm leg size impressed by elite human runners. For WHRG, researchers subsequently lengthened its legs by 10cm, apparently to enhance its working efficiency. Its design incorporates long-stride biomechanics, arm motion for steadiness and torso stabilization.
The robotic reportedly produces as much as 400 Nm of peak leg torque and makes use of a liquid-cooling system tailored from Honor’s smartphone thermal-engineering experience, with a reported circulate fee exceeding 4 liters per minute
The system combines imaginative and prescient, inertial sensing, and terrain estimation for autonomous navigation and impediment avoidance, though Honor has not publicly disclosed its actual sensor configuration or levels of freedom. Its battery capability and weight additionally stay undisclosed.
Lightning’s marathon efficiency demonstrates almost an hour of sustained high-output locomotion in outside environments. The platform is meant primarily for high-speed robotics analysis, embodied AI improvement, autonomous navigation, and athletic-grade bipedal management, moderately than broad client or industrial purposes.
