A new humanoid robot out of China can reportedly run faster than Usain Bolt’s recorded peak speed, and developers say they have only been working on it for a little over three months.
According to the Daily Mail, Chinese robotics company Unitree recently unveiled its new prototype, nicknamed “Superman,” showing the machine racing down a track at a reported 12.66 meters per second, or 28.3 mph.
That’s slightly faster than the 12.42 meters per second, or 27.78 mph, Bolt reached when he set the world record during the 2009 World Athletics Championships.
To be clear, Superman has not beaten Bolt’s 100-meter record. Unitree is comparing the robot’s reported top speed with Bolt’s peak speed during his historic race.
But running isn’t the only thing this machine can apparently do.
Unitree also released footage showing Superman jumping two meters straight into the air from a standing position. The Daily Mail reported that the current human standing-jump record is 1.7 meters, set by American Christopher Spell in 2021.
Unitree called the prototype “‘Superman’ breaking the limits of humanity” in a post on X.
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What may be even more remarkable, however, is how quickly the technology is advancing.
“This new machine has only been in development for a little over three months, with significant room for further improvement in the coming months,” Unitree wrote, according to the Daily Mail.
Those claims still come with an important caveat. The robot’s speed and jump have not been independently verified, and Unitree has not released its full technical specifications or disclosed how many times the tests were performed.
Yet the demonstrations point toward something much larger than whether a robot can outrun an Olympic champion.
Tech analyst Ma Jihua told the Global Times that these tests push capabilities such as jumping and running to determine a robot’s limits. Eventually, those abilities could allow humanoid machines to navigate disaster zones, dangerous terrain and other environments too hazardous for people.
Unitree says it has already produced approximately 18,000 humanoid robots.
Superman may still be a prototype, but the pace of development is difficult to ignore. When machines are already being built to run faster and jump higher than human benchmarks, the question isn’t simply what they can do today.
It’s what they’ll be able to do tomorrow.
Abby Trivett is a writer and editor for Charisma Media and has a passion for sharing the gospel through the written word. She holds two degrees from Regent University, a B.A. in Communication with a concentration in Journalism and a Master of Arts in Journalism. She is the author of the newly released book, The Power of Suddenly: Discover How God Can Change Everything in a Moment. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].