At a half marathon in China, robots outran human competition for the first time.
April 19, 2026, 05:33April 19, 2026, 05:33
In Beijing, the remote-controlled version of the humanoid “Blitz” from the smartphone manufacturer Honor’s team was the first to cross the finish line after 48 minutes and 19 seconds, despite a fall shortly before the end, as could be seen on state television.
Have left their flesh and blood competitors behind: humanoid robots at the Beijing Marathon.Image: keystone
Because the rules for remote-controlled robots add extra time, the time was corrected to around 57 minutes. The winner was another “Blitz” in the autonomous version, which crossed the finish line after 50 minutes and 26 seconds.
The best time of 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds set by the “Tiangong Ultra” robot from last year was significantly beaten. The existing human half marathon world record is 57 minutes and 20 seconds.
The number of development teams from companies and universities was five times higher this year, which is why dozens more humanoids took part. Some crashed along the way or crashed into the confines of the race track.
Robots in TV and everyday life
In China, where the Communist Party promotes so-called embodied artificial intelligence and wants to put the country in a leadership position, the robots have long been seen at trade fairs or in TV gala shows as dancers or boxers in the ring.
There is now also a Chinese robot roaming around in Poland. Edward Warchocki, as the humanoid is called, recently drove wild boars there and made the rounds on the Internet. The robot comes from the company Unitree, a pioneer that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited on his trip to China.
PR stunt or scientific progress?
China emphasizes taking a “human-centered” approach to developing artificial intelligence. What this means is that the technology should help people. But what are the benefits of half-marathon running robots?
Lorenzo Masia from the Technical University of Munich sees this as an important stress test for the robots. “Covering a distance of 21 kilometers requires not only efficient locomotion, but also robustness, energy management, thermal stability as well as reliable perception and control over longer periods of time,” says the director of the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence.
Prolonged locomotion forces developers to address key bottlenecks such as battery power, durability of motor drive units, real-time control and fault tolerance, says Masia.
Where the robots could be useful one day
Humanoid robots that run long distances are probably not used in everyday life. The expert on China’s digital economy, Liu Xingliang, says: “It’s not about who can run faster, but who is getting closer and closer to useful robots.” Liu sees use cases in service or household settings to support the elderly, or in human-hazardous environments such as fires or rescue operations. (sda/dpa)