A robot named Lightning has run the 100m in 9.32 seconds, beating the human world record, China’s state broadcaster has reported. The humanoid, developed by the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Honor, reached a peak speed of 14.5 metres per second during a test event for the second World Humanoid Robot Games, which began on Saturday. The performance surpassed the 9.58sec men’s 100m world record set by Usain Bolt 17 years ago at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin.
China has been promoting humanoid robots as an emerging industry, with policymakers and companies betting that advances in AI and hardware will accelerate their deployment in manufacturing, logistics and consumer applications. Lightning also won the Beijing half marathon in April in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, faster than the men’s world record. The robot stood 169cm tall and had 95cm-long legs at the half marathon.
Researchers have since lengthened its legs by 10cm for these Games. More than 2,000 humanoid robots were participating in the five-day games, now in its second year, a spectacle intended to demonstrate China’s rapid progress in advanced robotics as the technology race with the US heats up. There are 51 events and more than 1,000 competitions taking place including running, table tennis and football.
The games, which are taking place in the National Speed Skating Oval built for the 2022 Winter Olympics, opened the same week as Beijing held the 2026 World Robot Conference, where companies showcased around 3,000 products, including humanoid robots. China makes the majority of the world’s humanoid robots. Last month, the US Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on imports of new foreign-made humanoid robots.
The FCC cited national security reasons in a move that targeted China. The Pentagon recently also added Unitree, one of China’s leading humanoid robot makers, to its list of companies that it deemed have ties with the Chinese military. Beijing has hit back at the accusations.
At Saturday’s opening of the robot games, the organisers and robot makers said that Chinese humanoid robots defeated human world records, as hundreds of humanoid robots marched in formation on to the field in a massive display of synchronised coordination. In a standing high jump, a humanoid robot was able to reach 2.88m, well above the 0.95m best result by a humanoid in last year’s first edition of the games . It surpassed the human high jump record of 2.45m set by Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor in 1993.
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