Unitree's 'Superman' Humanoid Posts a 2-Meter Standing Jump and a 12.66 m/s Sprint Before Listing on the Shanghai Exchange on August 19

Unitree Robotics unveiled its new humanoid "Superman" on Monday with two record-class performance claims: a 2-meter standing vertical jump and a 12.66 m/s sprint speed, achieved from a leg length of only 0.85 meters. The Hangzhou-based company developed the system in just over three months and confirmed that it will debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Wednesday, August 19, after raising 6.1 billion yuan (roughly $905 million) in its IPO pricing.

What the Demo Showed

The release video, published across CGTN, Xinhua, and Reuters, shows Superman performing repeated 2-meter vertical jumps from a stationary squat — a height greater than the current standing high-jump world record of 1.65 m set in 2025. The sprint test, captured on a 30-meter track, hit 12.66 m/s, above the 12.42 m/s straight-line speed peak set by Usain Bolt in his 2009 world record. Both metrics were achieved without external tethers and with no human assist during motion. The robot itself weighs 47 kg with a 0.85-meter leg segment, which the company says gives it a quadruped-grade joint-torque density with a humanoid form factor.

Why the Numbers Matter

Each metric targets a different bottleneck in the embodied-AI industry. The 2-meter jump stresses the in-air control loop and the series-elastic actuator recovery: humanoids are typically limited by the time it takes to settle after an impact. The 12.66 m/s sprint stresses the hip-pelvis kinematic chain and the way a humanoid can generate and recover lateral impulses — a harder engineering problem than treadmill running. Unitree's claim that the system was built "from the ground up in just over three months" implies a stock component supply chain that the company's $905 million IPO proceeds will now formally fund.

Shanghai IPO: Trading Wednesday

Unitree's stock-market debut on August 19 will make it the first general-purpose robotics company to list on mainland China's stock market. The 6.1 billion yuan raise, completed last week, was reported by Reuters and confirmed by the Shanghai filing. Market-cap estimates at the indicated price range put the implied listing value north of $11 billion, with Hangzhou-based investors including the Hangzhou State-Owned Capital leading the cornerstone allocation.

The Wider Landscape

Unitree's IPO lands in the same week that Hyundai completed its acquisition of the remaining Boston Dynamics shares from SoftBank, making the Atlas developer a wholly-owned Hyundai subsidiary. Hyundai separately announced that the first Atlas deployment at its Georgia plant will begin in 2028, with Schaeffler and Mercedes-Benz North America signing follow-on humanoid-robot contracts. With Unitree public and Hyundai-Boston Dynamics vertically integrated, the humanoid-robotics market is moving from demos to balance-sheet disclosures.