Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics unveiled a new high-speed humanoid it calls Superman on August 17, 2026, staging the reveal just two days before the general-purpose robotics maker begins trading on Shanghai's STAR Market. Founder Wang Xingxing said the prototype was developed in just over three months and cleared a two-metre standing jump while reaching a top running speed of 12.66 metres per second — faster than any human sprint record.
A prototype tuned for pure locomotion
Superman ships without hands or grippers, a deliberate choice that lets Unitree focus the platform on gait, balance and dynamic movement rather than manipulation. The company said the robot remained a work in progress and would be refined further in coming months. The unveiling coincides with the opening of the annual World Robot Conference in Beijing, where Chinese humanoid vendors are competing for attention from state buyers and enterprise pilots.
Shanghai debut with 8,000x retail oversubscription
Unitree raised roughly 6.1 billion yuan ($905 million) in a listing that was more than 8,000 times oversubscribed by retail investors — a record for the STAR Market. Shares will begin trading on Wednesday, August 19. Derivative pricing in offshore markets is pointing to a strong debut and the broader STAR50 Index has rebounded about 15% from its early-August lows. Unitree is backed by Tencent, Alibaba and DeepSeek, and has cumulatively delivered about 18,000 bipedal humanoid robots across its G1 and H1 lines through July 2026, according to a company post referenced earlier this month in our production milestone report.
What it means for the humanoid race
Superman's raw locomotion numbers land at a moment when Chinese humanoid vendors are pulling ahead on shipped units and public-market access. RoboEra confirmed a Hong Kong IPO earlier this week (see our coverage of the $1B RoboEra listing), and Unitree's Shanghai float follows the pricing round we tracked in the $9 billion valuation update. With FCC import scrutiny on Chinese humanoids on one side and cheap, fast robots like Superman on the other, U.S. and European integrators will be watching whether Unitree can convert its speed-of-development story into export orders before regulatory walls harden.
Reporting based on coverage from Reuters via BusinessWorld Online and Cybernews.