This new super humanoid outruns and outjumps any human. Its maker is now worth $51 billion

On August 17, Unitree Robotics posted a 30-second https://finance.sina.cn/stock/jdts/2026-08-17/detail-ininrkkk0104276.d.html?oid=800&vt=4&cid=76993&node_id=76993" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">video to the Chinese social network Weibo.

It showed a headless humanoid named Superman jumping six and a half feet off the ground and sprinting at more than 28 miles per hour—higher and faster than any human in history (Usain Bolt, who holds the record for fastest human, clocked a top speed of 27.78 mph).

Two days later, the Hangzhou-based company went public on Shanghai’s stock market.

Its stock briefly touched $163.66, a https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3364499/unitree-robotics-surges-629-us66-billion-valuation-shanghai-share-debut" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">629% premium over its offer price, valuing the company near $66 billion intraday before it closed at $50.8 billion for the day, an extraordinary valuation for a pure robotics company.

It has only one precedent, another https://www.fastcompany.com/91570086/ubtech-first-commercial-human-like-robot" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Chinese company called UBTech, which was valued at $4.9 billion on its IPO in December 2023.

It’s the last brick in the towering castle that China is building around embodied https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence" title="AI">AI.

Beijing has elevated robotics into a matter of strategic importance for its future economy amid its broader technology contest with the United States.

The research firm Omdia puts China’s share of https://omdia.tech.informa.com/om143809/omdia-market-radar-generalpurpose-embodied-intelligent-robots-2026" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">worldwide humanoid robot sales in 2025 at nearly 90%, while U.S.-based competitors Tesla, Figure AI, and Agility Robotics each managed only about 150 units delivered.

McKinsey research https://www.fastcompany.com/91541581/unitrees-new-robot-is-like-a-giant-transformer-come-to-life" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">expects embodied AI—synthetic brains with a body to act in the physical world—to expand faster than nearly any other industry over the next several years.

It is a race to build one of the major drivers of the 21st century economy.

Unitree’s IPO shows, quite literally, how much slower the U.S. is running.

Unveiled by Unitree’s founder, Wang Xingxing, Superman is by far the most athletic robot we’ve seen to date.

It’s capable of jumping https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/csj/2026-08-17/doc-ininrkkr7826268.shtml" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">6.6 feet standing and reaching a top speed of 28.3 mph.

For comparison: In April, a modified Unitree H1 set a robot running record of about 22.4 mph.

And at the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games, the winning high jump entry cleared about https://www.seccw.com/Document/detail/id/48999.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">3.14 feet.

The machine has no head.

Estimates put Superman’s height at least 6 foot 3.

Its legs are 2.8 feet tall, longer than those on Unitree’s standard H1, a proportion aimed at stretching stride length to push speed higher.

It doesn’t have either hands or grippers.

And doesn’t have the head-mounted sensor hardware built into the commercial H1 and G1 lines.

We know that its joints use Unitree’s typical design, with high torque density built around rare-earth magnets, the pieces that are fundamental for robotics controlled globally by China.

There are no other specs at this point.

According to Unitree, Superman is “an experimental platform for studying highly dynamic movements.” The company claims that this is an entirely new unit that “was developed in a little over https://www.ecns.cn/m/cns-wire/2026-08-17/detail-ihfifqmx7366398.shtml" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">three months, and there is still substantial room for improvement in the months ahead.” No test venue, measurement methodology, or third-party verification accompanied the figures.

There’s also no total weight, degrees of freedom, battery capacity, sensor details, or mass-production timeline.

‘The embodied ChatGPT moment is coming’

It was a spectacular demonstration that was strategically timed, as it was unveiled two days before the August 19 listing.

Unitree became the https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/chinese-humanoid-robot-maker-unitree-list-shanghai-august-19-2026-08-17/">first general-purpose robotics company—not merely the first humanoid maker—to list on a mainland Chinese exchange.

Demand for retail shares ran to more than 8,000 times the available supply, a figure Reuters flagged as unmatched on the Star Market—the Chinese equivalent to the NASDAQ.

Unitree sales are skyrocketing now.

In the first quarter of 2026 they rose 68.5% year over year, and the company had cumulatively produced a record 18,000 bipedal humanoids across multiple models as of July.

Its robots had already gone viral running, dancing, and performing martial arts, while https://www.fastcompany.com/91534069/chinese-humanoids-are-leaving-american-robots-in-the-dust" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">taking over the real world too.

CATL, the big lithium-ion battery maker, is deploying humanoids at scale in Luoyang; Japan Airlines is trialing the Unitree G1 for baggage at Haneda, Tokyo’s city airport, through 2028; State Grid, China’s national electrical power network, launched a $1 billion robot-maintenance plan; and Unitree’s R1 sells internationally from under $5,000, against Elon Musk’s projected $20,000 to $30,000 Optimus.

In May, taking a page out of Musk’s epic announcement brand, https://www.fastcompany.com/91541581/unitrees-new-robot-is-like-a-giant-transformer-come-to-life" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Wang climbed into the torso of the GD01, a 1,102-pound, roughly $574,000 transformable mecha, walked it around, and punched through a concrete wall in one strike.

The company is calling this one Superman, another Musk-line move.

The South African billionaire’s Optimus, however, is hardly moving the needle in the real world at this point.

Given this showmanship and his company’s success, it’s no wonder the Unitree CEO https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/from-boxing-to-folding-shirts-chinas-humanoid-robot-boom-faces-real-world-test" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">got a coveted front row seat at the summit for China’s leading tech entrepreneurs held by President Xi Jinping back in February 2025.

But Unitree and UBTech are only the beginning of what’s to come.

Companies we hardly know about in the West—like AgiBot, Deep Robotics, Leju, X Square Robot, and LimX Dynamics—will likely join the public trading fray, alongside big names like Xpeng and BYD, which are investing heavily in the embodied AI industry.

“We are marching towards a ‘ChatGPT moment’ in embodied intelligence,” said Wang at the 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing, a day earlier.

That moment is being built, sold, and now publicly traded in Shanghai while the U.S. seems to still be watching from the stands.