The machines can finally run faster than the fastest human in history. But when it comes time to stop, they are still slamming into foam walls and getting carried off on stretchers.
For over a decade, Usain Bolt’s 9.58-second 100-meter dash was the absolute ceiling of human speed. It felt untouchable. But on a track in Beijing this weekend, a couple of machines made of metal and wire just blew right past it.
It happened at the second edition of the World Humanoid Robot Games. Tiangong Ultra, a machine built by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, clocked a 9.39-second sprint in its preliminary heat.
Right on its heels was another robot named Lightning, built by the smartphone company Honor. Lightning crossed the line in 9.47 seconds. Both of them easily beat Bolt’s legendary 2009 world record.
But if you watched the actual footage, it didn’t look like Olympic glory. It looked like a crash test.
The robots completely lacked any kind of human grace or balance. They didn’t slow down to catch their breath or wave at the crowd. They just ran full speed into a giant, thick foam mat built specifically to stop them from flying off the track.
The physical reality of that much speed hitting a dead stop was chaotic. Tiangong Ultra hit the mat and stumbled wildly into the sidelines, forcing the onlookers standing nearby to physically jump out of the way to avoid getting clipped.
Lightning fared even worse. The machine just collapsed onto the dirt after crossing the finish line. It couldn’t stand back up, and workers actually had to carry it away on a stretcher.
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The raw speed is still a massive leap, though. Just last year at the inaugural games, Tiangong Ultra ran the exact same 100-meter distance in 21.50 seconds. Cutting that time down to under 9.4 seconds in a single year shows just how fast the hardware is improving. Earlier in the day, state media reported Lightning hit a peak speed of 14.5 meters per second during a test run.
The engineers have clearly figured out how to make the motors push harder than human muscles ever could. The digital brain is fast enough. But until they figure out how to make the physical brakes work without calling for a medic, the machines still have a lot to learn about simply walking away.
