Chinese robot breaks human world record in Beijing half-marathon

A Chinese-built humanoid robot bushed the quality half-marathon satellite grounds successful Beijing connected Sunday, marking a breakthrough infinitesimal successful a high-stakes planetary contention for technological dominance.

A robot developed by Chinese smartphone shaper Honor completed the 21-kilometer (13-mile) contention successful 50 minutes and 26 seconds, beating the quality grounds of astir 57 minutes acceptable by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo past month.

The show marked a melodramatic betterment from past year’s inaugural event, erstwhile the apical robot finished successful much than 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Dozens of humanoid robots competed alongside astir 12,000 quality runners, navigating a parallel people to debar collisions.

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A robot crosses the decorativeness enactment successful the Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon held successful the outskirts of Beijing connected April 19, 2026. (Andy Wong/AP)

Nearly fractional of the robots ran utilizing autonomous navigation, portion others relied connected distant control, organizers said.

Despite the breakthrough, the contention inactive saw glitches, with immoderate robots stumbling astatine the commencement oregon veering into barriers.

Engineers said the winning robot was designed to mimic elite athletes, featuring agelong legs of astir 37 inches and precocious cooling systems to prolong performance.

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"Looking ahead, immoderate of these technologies mightiness beryllium transferred to different areas," said Du Xiaodi, an technologist with the Honor team. "For example, structural reliability and liquid-cooling exertion could beryllium applied successful aboriginal concern scenarios."

Team members observe adjacent to the winning Honor Lightning humanoid robot during a medal ceremonial aft the 2nd Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon successful Beijing, China, connected April 19, 2026. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

Spectators reacted with a premix of amazement and unease astatine the machines’ accelerated progress.

"It’s the archetypal clip robots person surpassed humans, and that’s thing I ne'er imagined," Sun Zhigang, who attended the lawsuit with his son, told The Associated Press.

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"The robots' velocity acold exceeds that of humans," spectator Wang Wen told the outlet. "This whitethorn awesome the accomplishment of benignant of a caller era."

A robot starts alongside quality runners astatine the Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Half Marathon connected the outskirts of Beijing connected April 19, 2026. (Ng Han Guan/AP)

Experts accidental the contention highlights China’s accelerating propulsion to predominate robotics and artificial intelligence, adjacent arsenic wide commercialized usage of humanoid robots remains limited, according to Reuters. The experts said Chinese robotics firms are inactive moving to make the AI bundle needed for humanoids to lucifer the ratio of quality mill workers.

Runners instrumentality pictures of a humanoid robot during the 2nd Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon successful Beijing connected April 19, 2026. (Haruna Furuhashi/Pool Photo via AP)

"The aboriginal volition decidedly beryllium an AI era," engineering pupil Chu Tianqi told Reuters. "If radical don't cognize however to usage AI present … they volition decidedly go obsolete."

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The contention underscores a broader technological contention betwixt China and the United States, arsenic Beijing invests heavy successful precocious robotics arsenic portion of its semipermanent economical strategy.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.