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Chinese humanoid robot is the 'fastest in the world' thanks to its trusty pair of sneakers
The STAR1 robot can reach a top speed of 8 mph with the added help of a pair of sneakers.
Scientists have demonstrated a new humanoid robot that can run at a top speed of just over 8 miles per hour (mph) — or 3.6 meters per second (m/s) to be exact. This makes it the speediest machine of its kind built so far, albeit these speeds were only achieved with the help of added footwear.
STAR1 is a bipedal robot built by the Chinese company Robot Era that's 5 feet 7 inches (171 centimeters) tall and weighs 143 pounds (65 kilograms).
In a promotional video, the team put two STAR1 robots up against each other in the Gobi Desert in northwestern China, and gave one model a pair of sneakers to see if this would make it run quicker.
Powered by high-torque motors and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, the footwear-donning STAR1 navigated different types of terrain, including grassland and gravel, while jogging on paved roads and earth, and sustained its top speed for 34 minutes.
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A top speed of 8 mph means it beat Unitree's H1 robot — which set the previous speed record for a bipedal robot at 7.4 mph (3.3 m/s) in March 2024. Although STAR1 had the help of footwear, H1 was not technically jogging or running as its feet did not both leave the ground at once during transit.
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STAR1 is powered by AI hardware that boasts a processing power of 275 trillion operations per second (TOPS), according to Robot Era's website. This is much higher than the typical amount of AI processing power you would find in many of the best laptops, which range between 45 and 55 TOPS. The robot also has 12 degrees of freedom, which refers to the number of joints it has and the range of movements it can make.
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The STAR1 is just one of many humanoid robots that companies around the world have showcased in recent months. These include Tesla's Optimus Gen-2 robot, the AI-powered Figure 01 robot and Boston Dynamics' new Atlas.
Keumars is the technology editor at Live Science. He has written for a variety of publications including ITPro, The Week Digital, ComputerActive, The Independent, The Observer, Metro and TechRadar Pro. He has worked as a technology journalist for more than five years, having previously held the role of features editor with ITPro. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist and has a degree in biomedical sciences from Queen Mary, University of London. He's also registered as a foundational chartered manager with the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), having qualified as a Level 3 Team leader with distinction in 2023.