Humanoid robots this Sunday lowered the mark of last year’s winner in the Beijing half marathon by two hourswhere the autonomous team ‘Qitian Dasheng’ won with a time of 50 minutes and 26 seconds, after a race in which the fastest machine to cross the finish line competed under remote retain watch over. The world record for this distance was established on March 8 by Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo in 57 minutes and 20 seconds.
The robotic ‘Shandian’ (lightning in Mandarin Chinese), also from the Honor company, was the first to complete the 21 kilometers with a net time of forty eight minutes and 19 secondsdespite falling just 100 meters from the finish line, but their result was left behind when the coefficient provided in the regulations for non-autonomous teams was applied, which penalizes their mark in the final classification (they are multiplied by 1.2).
Enthusiasm and concern
Behind the security fences, Han Chenyu, a 25-year-old student wearing a cap and sunglasses, barely has time to take out her phone when a robot has already passed by. The young woman declares herself enthusiastic about the event and the technological advances. “Although, as a future worker, I am also quite concerned. Because if technology advances too quickly, it can have repercussions on employment,” she says, alluding to the replacement of certain professions by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robots.
The test, held in the Yizhuang technological district of the Chinese capital, brought together more than a hundred teams of humanoid robots along with some 12,000 human runners according to the organization, on an urban route of 21.0975 kilometers, in the second edition of an event conceived as a test bed for this type of technology, which never ceases to surprise with its results.
In real conditions, robots win
The route included different types of terrain, such as curves, slopes or narrow sections, designed to test the stability and adaptability of the robots in real conditions. The improvement in times compared to 2025, when the ‘Tiangong’ robotic, a different model from the ‘Shandian’, he won with 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 secondsreflects the rapid progress in capabilities such as speed, stability or energy management, in a test in which the best records were already around 50 minutes.
Among the participants were also international teams from institutions such as the Technical University of Munich (Germany) or the Paris-Saclay University (France).in addition to joint training with Macau and Brazil. In parallel, the race served as a showcase for new applications, such as a traffic robotic that debuted on the route giving directions to the runners and that the authorities plan to progressively incorporate into urban management tasks, according to state television CCTV.
In the human category, Chinese Zhao Haijie won the men’s event with a time of 1 hour, 7 minutes and 47 secondswhile Wang Qiaoxia won the women’s race with 1 hour, 18 minutes and 6 seconds, according to organization data. The race is part of Beijing’s strategy to promote humanoid robotics as an industry, using tests in real environments to accelerate its development and evaluate its possible application in areas such as industrial inspection, assistance or urban services.
