Humanoid robots are getting better and better at doing human things. Their latest achievement? Running a half-marathon faster than a human. A robot from Chinese company Honor, best known for its smartphones, was the first to cross the finish line during a half-marathon event in Beijing over the weekend.
The bot beat both the current human world record for a half-marathon and the record for robot competitors set at the same event last year. Jacob Kiplimo, a long-distance runner from Uganda, recently set the human record in the Lisbon Half Marathon at 57 minutes and 20 seconds. In the 2025 event in Beijing, the first time that humanoid robots were allowed to compete, the fastest time set by a robot was 2 hours and 40 minutes. The top robot this year did it in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, surpassing both records.
The top three robots all autonomously navigated the 13-mile route using Honor’s “Lightning” model, while the 12,000 human competitors ran on a parallel track. The team behind the winning robot looked to the top human athletes to influence its design, giving it long legs at 37 inches. It also uses a custom liquid-cooling system that its designers believe could be adapted for industrial uses.
