Beijing hosted what is being referred to as the world’s inaugural half-marathon for robots, featuring bipedal bots competing alongside human runners, resulting in a series of amusing moments. Most of the robots, which had human operators accompanying them, struggled to navigate the course successfully, let alone finish the entire 13 miles within the four-hour time limit. “One fell at the starting line,” reports. “Another’s head fell off and rolled on the ground. And one collapsed and broke into pieces.” While they may not have secured gold medals, the spectacle proved highly amusing.
The humanoid robot half-marathon in Beijing just started! pic.twitter.com/8vr2nXQwuR
— The Humanoid Hub (@TheHumanoidHub) April 19, 2025
As reported by Bloomberg, out of the 21 robots that participated, only four managed to finish the race within the time limit, with the top finisher being X Humanoid’s five-foot-ten Tiangong Ultra. It completed the race in two hours and 40 minutes, which was more than twice the time of the leading human runners.
Teams were permitted to perform battery swaps (with Tiangong Ultra reportedly finishing on its third battery) and even substitute their robots mid-race, although this incurred time penalties. Alongside Tiangong Ultra, which maintained a speed of around five miles per hour, other participants included Noetix Robotics’ N2, a Gundam-inspired creation, a “female-looking” robot named Huan Huan, and the 30-inch-tall Little Giant robot developed by local college students, according to Bloomberg. Interestingly, many of the robots were fitted with human running shoes.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/a-bunch-of-robots-ran-a-half-marathon-alongside-humans-and-it-was-incredibly-goofy-215134524.html?src=rss
