China’s Tiangong Ultra humanoid robot achieved a groundbreaking feat on Tuesday, clocking in at 8.86 seconds for a 100-meter sprint at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. This represents a significant drop from the previous 9.39-second mark set by Jamaican sprinting great Usain Bolt in 2009, marking a monumental leap in robotic speed. The event, featuring over 2,000 robots from 666 teams competing across 51 events, including football, dancing, and industrial tasks, saw Tiangong’s performance a major highlight. The robots’ rapid improvement has been a central attraction at the second edition of the Beijing event, drawing more than 2,000 participants. Tiangong, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, surpassed the 100-meter race with a slower time of 21.50 seconds last year, months after winning the world’s first humanoid robot half-marathon with an amateur-level time of 2 hours 40 minutes. Li Hui, an engineer with Fudan University’s table-tennis team, commented that ‘reading that a motor-powered robot can run faster than a human is one thing,’ but seeing it ‘rush past you during training is completely different. You realize how impressive it is.’ Following this breakthrough, Tiangong experienced a dramatic collapse after a collision during its sub-nine-second sprint, with a small fire also appearing in its torso. The robot completed its sub-nine-second sprint by striking a thick mat beyond the finish line to stop the sprinting machines. A small fire appeared in the robot’s torso after it collapsed from the impact. The sub-nine-second sprint followed Tiangong’s opening-day win on Saturday, when it overtook Honor’s Lightning near the finish after falling behind early. Honor had previously recorded a faster time of 9.47 seconds, also under Bolt’s record. Honor had previously recorded a faster time of 9.32 seconds in a test run. The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center stated that its Tiangong robots had already beaten four human world records. Besides the 100m sprint, it pointed to a 400m time of 38.15 seconds, a 1,500m mark of 2 minutes 21.64 seconds, and a 2.88-metre-high jump. The center’s shareholder list includes state-owned enterprises, several investment funds, AI and cloud giant Baidu, and smartphone and EV maker Xiaomi’s robotics unit, according to Qichacha, a Chinese corporate data provider. The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center said earlier on Tuesday that its Tiangong robots had already beaten four human world records. Furthermore, the robots demonstrated a 400m time of 38.15 seconds, a 1,500m mark of 2 minutes 21.64 seconds, and a 2.88-metre-high jump, showcasing the robots’ impressive capabilities. The event highlighted the growing importance of humanoid robots within China’s strategic industrial sector, as companies and policymakers seek to translate advancements in artificial intelligence, motors, and sensors into applications across manufacturing, logistics, and services.”}”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
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Source: Al Jazeera
