Honor’s Lightning robot beats Usain Bolt’s 100m record in Beijing

A humanoid robot named Lightning, developed by Chinese smartphone manufacturer Honor, has recorded a 100-metre time of 9.32 seconds during a preparatory event for the second World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. According to China’s state broadcaster CCTV, the performance surpassed the 9.58-second men’s 100-metre world record established by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin in 2009.

The robot achieved a peak speed of 14.5 metres per second during the test, which took place as the Games opened in Beijing on Saturday. While the event serves as a preparatory trial rather than a standard athletics championship, the result highlights the rapid advancement of robotic hardware in high-performance contexts.

To optimise the robot for the Games, researchers lengthened Lightning’s legs by 10 centimetres, bringing the total leg length to 1.05 metres. Prior to this modification, the robot stood 169 centimetres tall with 95-centimetre legs, a configuration it used when competing in the Beijing half marathon earlier this year.

The result follows Lightning’s victory in the 21-kilometre Beijing half marathon in April, where it completed the course in 50 minutes and 26 seconds. That time was reported to be faster than the elite men’s human world-record pace, further cementing the machine’s status as a benchmark for humanoid performance.

The achievement arrives as Beijing promotes humanoid robotics as a strategic emerging industry. Policymakers and companies are betting that advances in artificial intelligence and hardware will accelerate the deployment of these machines in manufacturing, logistics, and consumer applications.

The 9.32-second mark was reported by CCTV, with independent verification of the timing conditions still pending. Nevertheless, the result underscores the government’s push to position China at the forefront of the next wave of industrial automation.