races

BEIJING: A week after his robot outran humanity’s fastest man, Jack Guo is already chasing a harder goal.

TianGong Ultra stunned spectators at the World Humanoid Robot Games ​when it covered 100 meters in 8.64 seconds, almost a full second faster than Usain Bolt’s world record. Behind the feat were days of round-the-clock testing and repairing battered robots between races.

“When it started smoothly and got past 50 meters, that was when I finally relaxed,” said Guo, who leads development of Ultra and Omni, a smaller model used in 400m races, at the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, known as X-Humanoid.

Just a week later, the bespectacled 34-year-old engineer is already focused on a bigger challenge.

“We want to turn high performance into high reliability and high usability,” he told Reuters in his first interview with foreign media.

The record-breaking run offers a rare window into China’s growing lead in humanoid robotics, where state-backed research, deep supply chains and intense competition are accelerating advances in machine mobility. Yet Guo’s next goal underscores a harder task facing the industry as it struggles to turn dazzling demonstrations into useful workers.

Inside the workshop

X-Humanoid sits in Yizhuang, a high-tech development ‌zone in Beijing’s southeast ‌and one of China’s main robotics clusters. Long home to automakers, the district now boasts a robot ​sales center ‌and ⁠even a ​robot-themed ⁠restaurant, part of the capital’s push to showcase the industry.

The first-floor showroom traces generations of TianGong robots, including one that still wears the vest from a winning half-marathon run last year.

On the ninth floor, white Ultra and Omni humanoids stand suspended in metal frames. One wears a red “Champion TianGong” headband.

During a Reuters visit, engineers repaired and tested robots, with one removing a head cover, another tightening a leg, and others running walking trials.

In the adjoining office, Guo’s team develops software before testing it on physical machines.

Established in November 2023, X-Humanoid is backed by state-owned and private investors including robotics firm UBTech, along with domestic tech giants Xiaomi and Baidu. It develops hardware, motion-control software and AI for the wider industry while commercialising its own robots.

X-Humanoid has not disclosed how many of its own robots it has sold or deployed commercially.

Its customers include universities, research institutes and companies ⁠exploring industrial applications. At Foton Cummins’ engine factory in Beijing, the company’s robots have been trialled moving boxes, with its ‌Tianyi 2.0 robot lifting 8-12 kg boxes onto shelves in what the factory described as an early-stage ‌exploration.

Useful work begins

Ultra was not originally designed to win a race. It started as an experiment to ​push the boundaries of humanoid movement.

Guo likens today’s humanoids to the ‌earliest cars: first make them controllable, then pair reliable bodies with smarter AI “brains” capable of handling complex tasks on their own.

He said the immediate challenge was ‌making the robot body and movement-control system stable and reliable for everyday use. Developing the AI needed for more complex autonomous tasks would take longer.

Making a robot run develops generalized mobility, improving its ability to cope with different terrain.

The smaller Omni has already shown what that can mean in practice. In an internal test this year, it climbed from the first floor to the 17th floor of X-Humanoid’s headquarters.

Guo expects smaller humanoids to find early roles in commercial services and light industry, while Ultra could eventually perform outdoor inspection or emergency ‌rescue.

One major challenge is braking. Ultra weighs 75kg and at top speed can exceed 17 meters per second. At the Games, a crash mat sat beyond a short run-off area, leaving sprinting robots in the 100m races ⁠to slam into the barrier.

Future versions could ⁠be lighter, brake harder and adopt a safer posture, Guo said.

Conquering speed

Ultra arrived at the Games armed with three running strategies trained in simulation. One was battle-tested, two faster on paper but less proven.

Each strategy is a trained motion-control system that continuously adjusts joints and balance, allowing the robot to sprint upright without an operator directing every step.

Ultra used a different program in each race, running 9.39 seconds in the preliminary, 8.86 in the semifinal, and 8.64 in the final.

Between races, engineers returned to their test site to push faster programs harder and adjust navigation and running controls. Engineers pulled several all-nighters, sometimes testing into the following day before returning to the venue.

Pushed to their limits, robots stumbled, lost balance and crashed, forcing teams to roll out backup machines while repair crews scrambled to fix the damaged ones.

Earlier in development, the breakdowns were even more dramatic. “Legs broke, waists broke,” Guo said.

A late surge

Even on the morning of the final, the team was testing a newly trained running program. It worked repeatedly during trials, but not on the competition track. Differences between individual robots also created headaches, leaving Guo uneasy before the race.

Ultra’s heavier legs limited early acceleration, but once it passed about 10 meters per second, it could keep building speed and reel in rivals.

The team had shaved roughly ​half a second from its starting response by the semifinal, Guo estimated. ​From there, attention shifted to outright speed.

In the final, a faster reaction time and late acceleration allowed Ultra to pull off a more decisive overtake.

Backstage, the team celebrated. At the closing ceremony, a row of TianGong humanoids donned red capes emblazoned with “Champion,” some waving pom-poms.

“Finally, I could get a good night’s sleep,” Guo said.

Nepal’s rescue teams, aided by Chinese and Indian experts, are racing to save more than 900 workers believed to be trapped underground at hydropower projects hit by devastating flash floods.

Nepali officials said on Monday that the focus was on reaching the workers in about a dozen hydropower project tunnels blocked by mud and rock debris.

The unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris on the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday – caused by a glacier collapse – has killed 903 people with 4,247 missing in Nepal, its disaster authority said.

The flood also wreaked havoc across the border in China’s Tibet region, where at least 16 people died and 546 are missing, said Chinese authorities.

‘Big challenge’

Pictures and videos shared by rescue teams in Nepal showed earth-moving equipment digging and shovelling mud and rocks under lights in the dark of the night as workers watched. Soldiers used torchlights in a big pit they had created to look for space to get into one tunnel.

“A large amount of debris has been deposited and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels,” Nepal army spokesperson, Raja Ram Basnet, told the Reuters news agency.

“Our main focus is on opening the tunnels.”

Hundreds of bodies, many unidentified, have been buried in shallow graves as they began decomposing in the humid weather after being swept down the mountains by the torrent.

At a hospital in the capital of Kathmandu, morgues have reached capacity and families are flocking to other hospitals in hopes of finding missing loved ones, reported Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez.

In addition to the 933 missing hydropower workers, some 500 workers from the Truck and Container Association are also missing, said Fernandez.

The Red Cross has estimated that more than 90,000 people are likely to have been affected by the disaster, which China has linked to the effects of climate change.

Prime Minister Balendra Shah said the flood was an “unprecedented and devastating natural disaster” and it remained challenging to compile a complete assessment of the damage.

“Despite the adverse weather, difficult terrain and continuing risks, we are moving forward with determination to save the lives of our citizens,” he said in a Facebook post late on Sunday, adding that nearly 21,000 security personnel were involved in rescue operations, besides civilian workers and volunteers.

While accessibility has been restored on many roads and highways, almost “40 kilometres of roads have been absolutely swept away”, Al Jazeera’s Fernandez said.

“So there are challenges on the ground in getting this aid to communities, but the authorities, as well as the agencies and their networks are working their way through it.”

China sends experts, aid

China’s state-run CCTV said the government has mobilised more than 2,100 rescue workers and allocated at least 220 million yuan ($33mn) to support relief efforts. Equipment and supplies have been airdropped to frontline rescuers, while Chinese soldiers used life-detection equipment to look for the missing.

Beijing said 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries were unaccounted for in Tibet.

“President Xi Jinping, according to state media, has called for all out efforts to rescue those missing in the mudslide, and this is the second time that the president has made such a call,” said Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing.

“So this seems to be the Chinese leader’s effort to call on people, not only to continue their efforts, but redouble their efforts even as things are looking grimmer and grimmer.”

China has sent nine tunnel rescue experts to Nepal and shared satellite information with Nepalese authorities, said Yu.

Although Nepal has said it does not need foreign help in general search and rescue efforts, it has accepted help from giant neighbours India and China for their expertise in tunnel rescue.

Rescue operations have been suspended several times since Friday because of bad weather and concerns that a lake, formed across the Nepal-China border by the disaster, could trigger new flooding after it began overflowing into Nepal’s rivers.

The weather was good on Monday and rescue work continued to pick up pace, said Narendra Pariyar, the district administrator of Rasuwa, one of the two hard-hit districts.

WASHINGTON — Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton swept the Southern states in Super Tuesday’s Democratic presidential voting, including delegate-rich Texas and Florida, re-establishing himself as the front-runner for his party’s nomination.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, Clinton’s principal rival, had his chief success in his home state, which he won easily as expected. He also won the Rhode Island primary and the caucuses in Delaware.

But Tsongas did no better than second in the Southern states, including Florida, where he had made his biggest commitment of time and resources and which was generally viewed as the most significant test of the day for him and Clinton. In addition to Florida and Texas, Clinton came in first in the primaries in Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Louisiana, and he won the caucuses in Missouri.

The victories Tuesday brought Clinton 418 delegates, contrasted with 208 for Tsongas and 23 for former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. Clinton started the race with 275 delegates, twice what Tsongas had. The eventual nominee will need a minimum of 2,145 delegates.

“I must say, it is only tonight that I fully understand why they call this Super Tuesday,” Clinton told cheering supporters in Chicago, where he arrived to launch his drive for primaries next Tuesday in Illinois and Michigan. “From Florida to Texas and all states in between, people opened their hearts to Hillary (his wife) and to me.”

For his part, Tsongas put a brave face on the results. “We’re on our way to the White House,” he said at a victory rally in his hometown of Lowell, Mass. He cited a Washington Post-ABC poll published Tuesday that showed him beating President Bush by 5 percentage points in a trial heat, 3 points more than Clinton’s margin over Bush.

Brown had his best showings Tuesday in Massachusetts, Mississippi and Oklahoma, running second in those states.

“This crusade rolls forward,” Brown declared Tuesday night at a United Auto Workers union hall in Romulus, Mich., a suburb of Detroit. “Hey, governing elite, watch out.

“I think I’m a lot closer to the heart and soul of this party” than the other candidates, he claimed. “I’ve got as good a chance as anybody. But this is a campaign that builds week by week. We’ve already moved from the margin to the center.

“We’re getting Tom Harkin’s vote now.” Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin’s role in the campaign as the spokesman for traditional Democratic liberalism ended this week when he dropped out of the race.

All told, 783 delegates–more than one-third the total required for nomination–were at stake in contests waged in 11 states, from Hawaii to Rhode Island. But seven of them were in Dixie or on its borders, which gave the day its special cast and gave Clinton an advantage he fully exploited.

A television network exit poll showed Clinton taking 68% of the vote among native-born Southerners, contrasted with 19% for Tsongas and 8% for Brown.

Once again, as in the Georgia and South Carolina primaries last week, blacks made a big contribution to Clinton’s victory. He got about 80% of the black vote across the South, according to network exit polls, contrasted with 59% of the white vote.

A Times exit poll in Florida showed that voters picked change, compassion and agreement on the issues as the main reasons that influenced their choice for President. Clinton won the support of the first two of these groups soundly and split the third evenly with Tsongas.

Tsongas appeared to have been hurt by Clinton’s charges that he was prepared to tamper with cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries. About one-fourth of those interviewed in The Times poll said that issue had influenced them, and three-fifths of that group backed Clinton.

Even on this day of triumph, concern over Clinton’s controversial draft status during the Vietnam War cast a shadow. Of Southern Democratic voters polled by the networks, 20% said this issue made them think less favorably of Clinton, although one-third of these voted for him anyway.

By contrast, in Florida, the Times poll showed that Tsongas took the votes of those interested in a candidate whose ethics they do not doubt, whom they believe they can trust, who has convictions and who has values like their own.

These answers appeared to reflect not only their confidence in Tsongas, but also their misgivings about Clinton because of the draft controversy and earlier allegations that he had been unfaithful to his wife. Those charges had damaged his campaign in New Hampshire, when polls had him far in front of the field.

Clinton attempted to address this problem Tuesday night in his victory speech in Chicago.

“The people of the South heard the worst about me but they saw the best,” he said. “They know that the true measure of character in politics can never be perfection, because, if it were, no one could pass. The true measure is genuine commitment that lasts day in and day out, through failures and disappointment and defeat and setback.”

Tsongas, who was outspent and who many thought was outmaneuvered in the day’s battle, sounded a defiant note.

“There are those who believe the American people are not intelligent, that you can be Santa Claus, that you can pander and give middle-class tax cuts,” he said, sounding one of his favorite themes at his Lowell rally. “I’m going to tell you something, Bill Clinton, you’re not going to pander your way into the White House as long as I’m around.”

Brown also sounded as if he had just begun to fight.

“I will tell you that I have a better chance than my two opponents” of getting the nomination, he told ABC News interviewer Peter Jennings. “Both of them are fatally flawed. They don’t represent the majority of who the Democratic Party is. I do. That’s my background.

“It’s hard to get the message out. But as we do, the crowds are going now from the hundreds to the thousands.”

In the frantic days of campaigning that preceded Tuesday’s day of decision, the contrasting objectives of the three Democratic contenders reflected the differences in their prospects and resources.

For Clinton, the balloting presented the opportunity to take a giant step forward in the delegate race and to gain momentum for next week’s critical contests in Illinois and Michigan.

“It’s always been the case that we had more money and more organization than anybody else,” Craig Smith, Clinton’s deputy campaign manager, said on the eve of the balloting. “Our strategy has been to go in and win as many states as we can and roll up a big delegate margin.”

That is exactly what Clinton did Tuesday throughout the South.

Perhaps just as important as these tangible assets in helping Clinton was the region’s demography. It created an environment more receptive to Clinton’s economic message–centered on his call for a small tax cut for middle-class families–than Tsongas’ doctrine of relying mainly on tax incentives for business to generate growth.

“The clarity of choice between Clinton and Tsongas on economic policy works to our advantage in the South more than in states like Maryland and New Hampshire,” where Tsongas won, said David Wilhelm, Clinton’s campaign manager. “There are more middle-income voters and more working families.”

Under these circumstances, the Super Tuesday confrontation represented mainly an exercise in damage control for Tsongas. Seeking to minimize the impact of defeat, the candidate and his managers conceded the outcome well in advance.

They set their goal as finishing a “strong second” everywhere, particularly in Florida, Super Tuesday’s most competitive battleground. And they pointed to what they asserted would be more positive results elsewhere in the country next week.

“Once Super Tuesday is over, he (Clinton) has to go into the rest of the country, and we’ve done better there,” said Tsongas campaign manager Dennis Kanin, citing his candidate’s victories in New Hampshire and Maryland.

As for Brown, the self-styled candidate of protest, the balloting offered a chance to enhance the credibility his candidacy gained with victories in Colorado and Nevada. Waging his guerrilla style of political warfare from Dixie to New England, Brown sometimes seemed mainly a threat to Tsongas’ support, particularly when he appealed for the vote of environmentalists by demanding a ban on ozone-threatening products.

But Brown also sought to make inroads in Clinton’s backing among minorities, telling a rally of Latinos in El Paso, “You know you’re being ripped off, lied to, shined on.”

Here is a brief look at how the contest took shape in the biggest battlegrounds:

FLORIDA: 148 delegates.

Tsongas was drawn into making his biggest Super Tuesday commitment of time and resources here mainly because of demographics–the presence of more expatriate Northerners, more suburbanites and more upper-income voters than anywhere else in the South. Those characteristics have defined Tsongas voters in past primaries.

Recent political history also seemed encouraging. In the last two Democratic presidential campaigns, Florida has been won by non-Southern candidates who, like Tsongas, won the New Hampshire primary–former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart in 1984 and former Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis in 1988.

But as Tsongas strategists soon realized, circumstances were more favorable for Hart–who was running against another non-Southerner, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale–and for Dukakis–who had financial and organizational assets that in the 1992 contest are possessed by Clinton.

Clinton’s operation had daily polling to guide it. By contrast, conceded Rob Schroth, Tsongas’ state coordinator, “The only way I can find out what is going on is by talking to voters, to reporters and to the Clinton people.”

More important, Clinton strategists contend, Tsongas hurt his own cause. Instead of concentrating solely on his theme of economic revival, they point out, he spent much of the past few days attacking Clinton, calling the Arkansas governor “cynical and unprincipled.” He also was forced to deal with Clinton’s attacks on him for favoring a gasoline tax, for allegedly being insufficiently supportive of Israel and for supposedly being willing to tamper with Social Security cost-of-living allowances.

“He got off his message for three days and it hurt him,” said Jeff Eller, Clinton’s state coordinator. Kanin concedes that Tsongas’ shift in emphasis may have undercut his message but asserts that his candidate had no choice but to hit back at Clinton. “What Clinton was doing was attacking him all over Florida on whatever issue appealed most in that area,” Kanin said.

TEXAS: 196 delegates.

Clinton helped himself by coming to Texas early and often, as well as by capitalizing on friendships in the state that go back more than 20 years. “He’s paid a lot of attention to this state,” said George Christian, an Austin political consultant and onetime aide to former President Lyndon B. Johnson. “He’s here every time you turn around.”

Because of that, Clinton has lined up an impressive list of endorsements from elected and party officials and from leaders of key interest groups.

“He’s got the who’s who of the Mexican community and the who’s who of the black community on his side,” said George Shipley, a Democratic consultant who guided Texas Gov. Ann Richard’s campaign to victory in 1990.

One influential group, the Texas Mexican-American Democrats, not only endorsed Clinton, but also mailed out 200,000 letters to Mexican-American voters urging them to cast their ballots for the Arkansas governor.

Tsongas campaigned here for only two days, and his late-starting organization seemed to have relied at least as much on misgivings about Clinton as on Tsongas’ own virtues to get support.

Clinton “has impressive financial assets, but he has heavy personal liabilities,” said Texas Railroad Commissioner Robert Kreuger, Tsongas’ state chairman.

The personal contrast with Clinton did appear to help Tsongas win some votes. After hearing Tsongas speak at a rally at the Alamo last week, Sylvia Jiminez, a San Antonio accountant, praised his economic message but said pointedly, “Bill Clinton is too much glitz.”

SOUTHERN PRIMARIES: Clinton was helped by a big edge in endorsements from prominent Democrats in the rest of the South. Tennessee, with 68 delegates, was the only state in which Tsongas campaigned, aside from Texas and Florida. Only Brown made a significant attempt to compete in Mississippi, with 39 delegates. In Oklahoma, with 45 delegates, Tsongas failed to get on the ballot because of a technical slip-up by his staff, leaving second place to Brown.

Staff writers Cathleen Decker, David Lauter, J. Michael Kennedy and Marilyn Yaquinto contributed to this story.

RELATED STORIES, PICTURES: A12-14

Super Tuesday Vote

Here are the top finishers in Super Tuesday’s key states:

DEMOCRATS Clinton Tsongas Brown % of vote in 1. Massachusetts (primary) 11 67 14 83 2. Rhode Island (primary) 21 53 19 100 3. Delaware (caucus) 21 30 19 100 4. Florida (primary) 51 34 12 92 5. Tennessee (primary) 67 19 8 99 6. Mississippi (primary) 73 8 10 94 7. Louisiana (primary) 69 11 7 99 8. Missouri (caucus) 61 6 4 90 9. Oklahoma (primary) 70 — 17 99 10. Texas (primary) 66 19 8 78 11. Hawaii (caucus) — — — —

GOP Bush Buchanan Duke % of vote in 1. Massachusetts (primary) 66 28 2 90 2. Rhode Island (primary) 63 32 2 100 3. Delaware (caucus) — — — — 4. Florida (primary) 69 31 — 92 5. Tennessee (primary) 73 22 3 99 6. Mississippi (primary) 72 17 11 93 7. Louisiana (primary) 62 27 9 95 8. Missouri (caucus) — — — — 9. Oklahoma (primary) 70 27 3 99 10. Texas (primary) 70 24 3 76 11. Hawaii (caucus) — — — —

All numbers are percentages. Complete results, A12

Super Tuesday Roundup

Here are the latest results from Tuesday’s presidential contests. PRIMARIES Texas DEMOCRATS 78% of precincts reporting

Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 819,554 66 97 Paul E. Tsongas 230,607 19 28 Jerry Brown 93,657 8 2 REPUBLICANS 76% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 425,588 70 121 Patrick Buchanan 143,829 24 0 David Duke 15,723 3 0 Uncommitted 18,259 3 0 Florida DEMOCRATS 92% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 536,088 51 87 Paul E. Tsongas 360,339 34 58 Jerry Brown 131,267 12 3 REPUBLICANS 92% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 554,173 69 97 Patrick Buchanan 254,150 31 0 Massachusetts DEMOCRATS 83% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Paul E. Tsongas 443,150 67 88 Jerry Brown 94,483 14 6 Bill Clinton 70,480 11 0 Uncommitted 10,114 2 0 REPUBLICANS 87% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 149,247 66 26 Patrick Buchanan 63,124 28 11 David Duke 4,785 2 0 Uncommitted 8,618 4 1 Tennessee DEMOCRATS 99% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 211,488 67 56 Paul E. Tsongas 60,662 19 12 Jerry Brown 25,415 8 0 Uncommitted 12,217 4 0 REPUBLICANS 99% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 177,173 73 23 Patrick Buchanan 54,328 22 10 David Duke 7,662 3 0 Uncommitted 5,043 2 0 Louisiana DEMOCRATS 99% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 259,731 69 59 Paul E. Tsongas 41,790 11 1 Jerry Brown 24,925 7 0 REPUBLICANS 94% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 75,346 62 26 Patrick Buchanan 32,484 27 5 David Duke 10,438 9 1 Oklahoma DEMOCRATS 99% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 288,031 70 38 Jerry Brown 68,432 17 7 REPUBLICANS 98% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 147,426 70 34 Patrick Buchanan 56,234 27 0 David Duke 5,474 3 0 Mississippi DEMOCRATS 94% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 138,777 73 39 Jerry Brown 18,222 10 0 Paul E. Tsongas 15,093 8 0 Uncommitted 11,642 6 0 REPUBLICANS 92% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 104,065 72 33 Patrick Buchanan 24,320 17 0 David Duke 15,516 11 0 Rhode Island DEMOCRATS 100% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Paul E. Tsongas 26,875 53 13 Bill Clinton 10,729 21 6 Jerry Brown 9,519 19 3 Uncommitted 689 1 0 REPUBLICANS 100% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 9,911 63 10 Patrick Buchanan 5,012 32 5 David Duke 327 2 0 Uncommitted 440 3 0 CAUCUSES Missouri DEMOCRATS 90% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 306 61 34 Paul E. Tsongas 30 6 2 Jerry Brown 20 4 0 Uncommitted 143 29 30 Delaware DEMOCRATS 100% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Paul E. Tsongas 48 30 5 Bill Clinton 33 21 3 Jerry Brown 31 19 2 Uncommitted 47 30 4 Hawaii DEMOCRATS 0% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton xxx xx x Paul E. Tsongas xxx xx x Jerry Brown xxx xx x Uncommitted xxx xx x

* Republican caucuses in Missouri, Delaware and Hawaii will be held in the coming months.