AIBRIEF
The 1.79 meter robot, prepped for the World Humanoid Robot Games, a Beijing humanoid robot competition, hit a peak that would beat Bolt's 9.58s 100m record, but the run was a robot only test, not a sanctioned sprint.
Lightning, a 1.79-meter humanoid robot whose legs were lengthened to 1.05 meters ahead of the second World Humanoid Robot Games, a Beijing competition for humanoid robots, hit 14.5 meters per second in a Saturday preparatory test. That peak, if sustained over 100m, would beat Usain Bolt's 9.58-second world record.
The run was a robot-only trial, not a head-to-head race, and peak speed is not a regulated sprint time. China Central Television, the state broadcaster, reported the result; no independently verified timing data has surfaced. Wire coverage has been framing the peak m/s as a head-to-head 100m win, conflating two different measures.
Lightning's hardware is a moving target. The robot originally stood 169 cm tall with 95-cm legs. Engineers lengthened the legs by 10 cm before the games, which open this weekend in Beijing and feature humanoid robots from multiple countries in track and field events.
The robot has a distance record behind it. In April, Lightning won the 21-km Beijing half marathon in 50 minutes 26 seconds, a faster pace than the elite men's world record for the distance.
The 14.5 m/s peak sets up the second World Humanoid Robot Games, which opens Saturday in Beijing and will test whether the platform can hold that speed over a full 100m under race conditions.