On Sunday morning in a Beijing suburb, a red, humanoid robot completed a half-marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds – about seven minutes faster than the men’s world record.
The second annual robot half marathon – with machines running alongside human racers – wasn’t just tech gimmickry. It showed rapid advances in artificial intelligence that could allow such machines to gain the physical skills and dexterity to take on a range of tasks more rapidly than anticipated.
In the inaugural robot race a year ago, the humanoids were mostly a joke. One fell at the starting line; another collapsed and broke into pieces. The vast majority of the machines failed to finish the race – and the fastest came in far behind the flesh-and-blood winners at 2 hours and 40 minutes.
This year’s race demonstrated broad progress, wrote analyst Dien Wang and his colleagues at Bernstein Research. While last time, most robots had humans using remote controls to guide them through the race, 40% of the robots this year ran autonomously, they said.
"The course included flat sections, slopes, narrow passages, and – 20 turns, demonstrating rapid improvement in robots’ intelligence to handle generalised environments in the real world,” they wrote.
More than 100 different teams fielded 300 robots to participate in the race, hinting at the breadth and ambition of the country’s strategy. The standout this year was Honor Device Co, a Chinese smartphone maker that has pivoted aggressively into robotics since it was spun out of Huawei Technologies Co in 2020. The Shenzhen-based company’s robots took all three of the top places.
The winner of last year’s race, a robot called Tiangong Ultra, was developed by X-Humanoid, a Beijing-based research institute. Competition among the country’s developers is rising as they take advantage of a sophisticated supply chain, falling component prices, as well as rapid advances in balance, gait and energy efficiency, the Bernstein analysts wrote.
While fewer robots broke down during the race this year, there were many mishaps. One bot, also built by Honor, ran full-tilt into a barricade and had to be carried off the field on a stretcher. Others stumbled at the starting line and some had mechanical failures.
The race showcases China’s industrial policy priorities. The government’s latest economic blueprint for the period until 2030 sets out plans for progress in artificial intelligence and quantum computing, in addition to robotics.
China is seeking advances in robotics to mitigate the economic risks of an ageing population. Chinese companies accounted for the vast majority of the roughly 13,000 humanoid machines shipped in 2025, according to researcher Omidia. – Bloomberg
