China’s humanoid robots have mastered kung fu, boxing, and serving your coffee — and now they’re leaving the world’s fastest man in the dust.
Unitree, a Chinese robotics firm that is set to go public at a $9 billion valuation on Wednesday, unveiled a new “Superman” humanoid robot on Monday that it says can outrun and outjump top human athletes.
The company said the robot, which has been in development for just three months, can reach a top speed of 12.66 meters per second (m/s) — faster than the roughly 12.4 m/s top speed achieved by Usain Bolt during his world-record 100m run in 2009. Bolt took 9.58 seconds to cover the distance, whereas Unitree’s robot would take 7.90 seconds if it maintained its top speed throughout.
Unitree also said that Superman can jump two meters vertically into the air, beating the human world record for a standing high jump.
The robot’s unveiling comes ahead of Unitree’s much-anticipated IPO on Wednesday. The humanoid robot manufacturer is set to list in Shanghai in a milestone moment for China’s booming robotics industry, with filings suggesting the IPO’s retail-investor allocation is more than 5,000 times oversubscribed.
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Business Insider was not able to independently verify Unitree’s claim that the Superman robot broke human speed records.
The humanoid robotics industry has an excellent track record of producing flashy demos, but limitations in the underlying AI systems have meant that humanoids have not yet been widely adopted in factories, service industries, and other real-world settings.
With its spindly legs and ungainly running style, Unitree’s Superman robot is not quite as elegant as its flagship G1 android, a troupe of which wowed onlookers at China’s Spring Festival gala with backflips and kung-fu earlier this year.
However, it’s more evidence of just how fast China’s robotics industry is accelerating. Unitree shipped nearly 6,000 humanoid robots in the first half of 2026, according to data from business intelligence firm Smart Analytics Global.
Unitree sells robots across a huge variety of form factors and prices, from the $13,500 dancing G1 humanoid to the $650,000 GD01, a gloriously impractical giant mecha that can smash through walls and transform into a four-legged vehicle.
The nascent market for humanoid robots, which Morgan Stanley analysts predict could be worth $7.5 trillion by 2050, is dominated by Unitree and its local rivals. US humanoid robots are still some distance away from mass commercial launches.
Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot, which Elon Musk has said will cost around $25,000, is expected to enter production by the end of 2026, and several other US humanoid startups have said they expect to begin limited customer deliveries this year.
US robotics fans hoping to pick up a Unitree Superman are likely to be disappointed. The Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on some new foreign-made advanced robots last month, a move that US robotics startup founders warned could hurt their ability to compete with Unitree and other Chinese firms.
