Summary:
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Tiangong Ultra breaks human record, completing 100 meters in 8.64 seconds, surpassing Usain Bolt’s 9.58 seconds set in 2009.
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Robot shaves nearly a full second off sprint record, progressing from 9.39 to 8.64 seconds in one competition.
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More than 2,000 robots compete in various disciplines, showcasing agility and versatility in simulated scenarios and kickboxing ring.
A machine called Tiangong Ultra ran 100 meters in 8.64 seconds on Wednesday in Beijing, which means the fastest 100 anyone has recorded now belongs to something that charges overnight. Usain Bolt has held the human record at 9.58 seconds since 2009.
Seventeen years, one man, one afternoon in Berlin, and a robot shaved nearly a full second off it at a five-day competition most people did not know was happening.
The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre built Tiangong Ultra, which took the large-size robot final at the second World Humanoid Robot Games. The progression is the part that should worry you.
It ran 9.39 in qualifying. Then 8.86. Then 8.64 in the final. The thing got measurably better at running over the course of one competition, which no hamstring in history has ever managed.
More than 2,000 robots from 666 teams competed across 51 disciplines, most of the teams Chinese. Some of it looked like sports. Some of it looked like a double shift. Organizers ran the machines through simulated factories, restaurants, offices and emergency scenarios, and a separate bracket put 80-kilogram Unitree robots in a kickboxing ring to fight for third place.
The falls generated more video than the medals did, and the falls remain the best argument for watching any of it.
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Spectators told Reuters the robots moved far less stiffly than they did at last year’s games.
A 34-year-old surnamed Niu compared them to healthy newborns growing up, which lands as charming until you remember newborns eventually get car keys. A 29-year-old surnamed Yang said she could picture robots turning as ordinary as smartphones, one at home and one at work, handling chores or helping care for older relatives.
The developers came for something other than medals. Galbot founder and chief technology officer He Wang described the competition as a public test bed for embodied AI, meaning the software plus a body that can perceive the world and act in it.
A sprint proves balance and control in front of a crowd that would never open a research paper.
