An international half marathon featuring humanoid robots took place in Beijing, during which one of them demonstrated a result exceeding the declared world record among humans.
About 12,000 people and around 300 humanoid machines participated in the race.
The best result among robots was shown by "Shandian" ("Lightning") from the "Citian Dasheng" team, which completed the distance of 21 km in 50 minutes and 26 seconds. According to the organizers, this time was faster than the world record among humans — 56 minutes and 42 seconds.
Among the athletes, the winners were Chinese runners: Zhao Haijie (1:07.47) for men and Wang Qiaoxia (1:18.06) for women. A total of over 32,400 participants aged 18 and older submitted applications to take part.
More than 100 teams presented humanoid robots, five of which were from abroad. About 40% of the participants used fully autonomous models, while the rest used remote-controlled devices. The robots moved on a separate track parallel to the humans.
Starting in 2025, the Chinese Athletics Association granted the competition official status as a tournament involving artificial intelligence. The first such half marathon took place on April 19, 2025, when the winner among machines was "Tiangong 1.2 max," which recorded a time of 2 hours and 40 minutes.
