Humanoid robots broke the human half-marathon world record in Beijing on Sunday, illustrating China's spectacular technological advances in the sector. The robots and the 12,000 humans participating in the sporting event moved on parallel courses to avoid any collision.

Published on: 04/19/2026 - 11:17

Several Chinese-made humanoid robots beat humans in a half-marathon held on Sunday April 19 in Beijing, demonstrating their athletic abilities and autonomous navigation skills.

These performances also and above all underline the dazzling technical progress of the sector since the first edition of this race, in 2025, was characterized by a series of technical glitches, which prevented most of the robots from finishing the race.

In 2025, the best time recorded by a machine over the distance was two hours and forty minutes, more than twice as long as the time taken by the human winner of the race.

However this year, several robots were significantly faster than professional athletes, beating the human winners by more than 10 minutes.

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The robots ‌and the 12,000 men and women participating in the half marathon ran on parallel courses to avoid collisions.

New compared to last year: almost half of the participating robots completed the 21-kilometer race autonomously, rather than being guided by remote control.

World record broken

The winning robot, developed by Chinese smartphone brand Honor, completed the race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, beating by several minutes the half-marathon world record set by Ugandan runner Jacob Kiplimo in Lisbon last month.

Teams from Honor, a subsidiary of Huawei, took the first three places on the podium, all with autonomous robots that broke world records.

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Du Xiaodi, an Honor engineer on the winning team, said the winning robot, which took a year to develop, was equipped with 90-95cm long legs to mimic elite human runners and liquid cooling technology used in their smartphones.

“Running faster may not seem significant at first, but it enables technology transfer, for example towards structural reliability and cooling, and ultimately towards industrial applications,” said Du Xiaodi.

With Reuters

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