China's humanoid robots person mastered kung fu, boxing, and serving your coffee — and now they're leaving the world's fastest man successful the dust.
Unitree, a Chinese robotics firm that is group to spell nationalist astatine a $9 cardinal valuation connected Wednesday, unveiled a caller "Superman" humanoid robot connected Monday that it says tin outrun and outjump apical quality athletes.
The institution said the robot, which has been successful improvement for conscionable 3 months, tin scope a apical velocity of 12.66 meters per 2nd (m/s) — faster than the astir 12.4 m/s apical velocity achieved by Usain Bolt during his world-record 100m tally successful 2009. Bolt took 9.58 seconds to screen the distance, whereas Unitree's robot would return 7.90 seconds if it maintained its apical velocity throughout.
Unitree besides said that Superman tin jump 2 meters vertically into the air, beating the human world record for a opinionated precocious jump.
The robot's unveiling comes up of Unitree's much-anticipated IPO connected Wednesday. The humanoid robot shaper is group to database successful Shanghai successful a milestone infinitesimal for China's booming robotics industry, pinch filings suggesting the IPO's retail-investor allocation is much than 5,000 times oversubscribed.
With its spindly legs and ungainly moving style, Unitree's Superman robot is not rather arsenic elegant arsenic its flagship G1 android, a troupe of which wowed onlookers astatine China's Spring Festival gala pinch backflips and kung-fu earlier this year.
However, it's much grounds of conscionable really accelerated China's robotics manufacture is accelerating. Unitree shipped astir 6,000 humanoid robots successful the first half of 2026, according to information from business intelligence patient Smart Analytics Global.
Unitree sells robots crossed a immense assortment of shape factors and prices, from the $13,500 dancing G1 humanoid to the $650,000 GD01, a gloriously impractical elephantine mecha that tin smash done walls and toggle shape into a four-legged vehicle.
The nascent marketplace for humanoid robots, which Morgan Stanley analysts foretell could beryllium worthy $7.5 trillion by 2050, is dominated by Unitree and its section rivals. US humanoid robots are still immoderate region distant from wide commercialized launches.
Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot, which Elon Musk has said will cost astir $25,000, is expected to participate accumulation by the extremity of 2026, and respective different US humanoid startups person said they expect to statesman constricted customer deliveries this year.
US robotics fans hoping to prime up a Unitree Superman are apt to beryllium disappointed. The Federal Communications Commission announced a ban connected immoderate caller foreign-made precocious robots past month, a move that US robotics startup founders warned could wounded their expertise to compete pinch Unitree and different Chinese firms.
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