A Chinese humanoid robot finished a 100-meter practice race in just 9.32 seconds, beating the human world record, Chinese media reported on Saturday.
That put the robot, called Lightning, at the finish line 0.26 seconds faster than Jamaican Usain Bolt, who set a world record at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin in 2009 with a 100m time of 9.58 seconds.
Lightning's preparatory run was for the second World Humanoid Robot Games that opened in Beijing on Saturday.
The sporting event is one of a kind where technology companies — mostly Chinese — and university groups gather to show off the many tasks their robots can do.
Lightning's extraordinary race to the finish line is a big marker of progress in the field of artificial intelligence because the best of humanoid robots were struggling to complete a race just last year.
