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A humanoid robot has beaten the human half marathon world record, in a landmark moment for robotics at a race designed to push machines to their limits in real-world conditions.
The robot, developed by Chinese smartphone company Honor, completed the 21-kilometre course in 50 minutes and 26 seconds at the Beijing E-Town Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon on Sunday – faster than the human record set by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, who ran the distance in around 57 minutes earlier this year.
According to Honor engineer Du Xiaodi, the robot’s design was inspired by elite human runners. “From the very beginning of the design, our robot was modeled on outstanding human athletes, achieving long legs of about 0.95 meters,” he said.
“In addition, we’ve equipped it with a very powerful liquid-cooling system, which is also largely developed in-house.”
More than 100 robots took part in this year’s race, following large-scale trial runs involving over 70 teams navigating the full course overnight in Beijing’s E-Town development zone.
Machines ran alongside 12,000 human participants, though in parallel tracks to avoid collisions.
Around 40% of the robots ran using fully autonomous navigation – a key challenge organisers have deliberately built into the competition – while others were remotely controlled.
At last year’s inaugural event, only six out of 21 robots completed the race. This time, performance improved dramatically, although the competition still exposed technical limits – some robots fell right at the start, others collided with barriers, and teams continued to battle with overheating motors and battery constraints.
A separate, remote-controlled robot from Honor crossed the finish line first in 48 minutes and 19 seconds. However, the autonomous model secured overall victory under the event’s scoring system, with two more Honor robots – also autonomous – completing the podium.
Looking ahead, Du said the technology developed for this race could extend beyond competitive events. “Some of these technologies might be transferred to other areas. For example, structural reliability and liquid-cooling technology could be applied in future industrial scenarios.”
He added: “It’s similar to how the automotive industry initially developed through competitions.”