A robot by Honor broke the world record, finishing at 50 minutes and 26 seconds

A robot developed by Chinese smartphone maker Honor just broke the world record for the fastest half-marathon finish time at the Beijing E-Town competition.

The Beijing long-touted robots vs. humans half-marathon was held last Sunday, and there was a significant leap in the performance of the robots from the year before. “The robots’ speed far exceeds that of humans,” one spectator, Wang Wen, said. 

The winning robot by Honor completed the race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, breaking the world record set by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo for the same distance, which was around 57 minutes. More impressively, the robot navigated the race track autonomously.

Honor robot wins Beijing’s marathon

Another robot by Honor, called Lightning, had finished even faster at 48 minutes and 19 seconds. However, it was remotely controlled, which meant the time posted would be multiplied by 1.2 based on the rules of the event, The Global Times reported.

In the first event, 21 humanoid robots were pitted against 12,000 human runners, Cryptopolitan reported. The first robot to complete the race finished in 2 hours and 40 minutes, while a human won the event in 1 hour and 2 minutes. 

Only 6 robots from 20 teams were able to cross the finish line during the previous event. This time, however, 47 of 102 robot teams completed the race, and at much faster times. 

“I feel enormous changes this year. It’s the first time robots have surpassed humans, and that’s something I never imagined,” said another spectator, Sun Zhigang.

But the event wasn’t without some failures. There were reports of robots running into barriers and others going off the track. A Unitree H1 robot had to be carried away by the team after it stumbled upon crossing the finish line.

China’s robot technologies are advancing rapidly

The performance of robots goes to show just how much Chinese robot technologies are improving. 

Although the quicker pace of the robots doesn’t mean much at the moment, Honor engineer Du Xiaodi said such improvement allows for technology transfer into “structural reliability and cooling, and eventually industrial applications.”

Over the recent years, China has been pushing policies to advance its robotics sector, especially to augment its declining workforce. Cryptopolitan reported in March how Chinese lawmakers adopted the country’s “15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030),” which included robotics or embodied artificial intelligence among its key focuses. 

Some experts argue that China hasn’t nailed the AI software that would allow for the mass commercialization of humanoid robots in industrial settings, according to Reuters. Yet, the country remains the largest market for industrial robots.

China has over 2 million operational stock of robots working in factories, which accounts for roughly half of all industrial robots in use around the world, according to the International Federation of Robotics. 

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