Business · Ars Technica
Robot runner handily overtakes humans in half-marathon, setting new record
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◎ Multiple-sources
Humanoid robots outran the fastest human competitors while surpassing the human world record during a half-marathon event held in Beijing on April 19.
Key facts
- The fastest robot from Chinese smartphone-maker Honor notched a winning time of 50 minutes and 26 seconds while autonomously navigating the 13-mile (21-kilometer) route, according to the Global Times
- Last year’s inaugural half-marathon for robotic competitors saw the fastest robot record a race time of 2 hours and 40 minutes—still significantly slower than the human winner of the 2025 event
- The Beijing half-marathon event—which featured 300 robotic contestants fielded by about 100 primarily Chinese teams—coincides with the billions of dollars invested by Chinese and US tech industries
- This story was updated on April 20, 2026 to reflect the fact that robots are not “taking away” records achieved by human athletes
Summary
The fastest robot from Chinese smartphone-maker Honor notched a winning time of 50 minutes and 26 seconds while autonomously navigating the 13-mile (21-kilometer) route, according to the Global Times. The winning robot design took inspiration from top human athletes by incorporating long legs measuring approximately 37 inches (95 centimeters) in length, said Du Xiaodi, a test development engineer for Honor, who spoke as a member of the winning team to The Associated Press and other publications. All three top-ranked robot contestants incorporated Honor’s “Lightning” model to operate autonomously and beat the 12,000 human competitors who ran along a parallel track during the half-marathon event, . But overall, humanoid robots still have a long way to go in demonstrating their capability to operate in complex and sometimes chaotic environments.