A red humanoid robot named Lightning ran the Beijing E-Town half marathon on Sunday in 50 minutes and 26 seconds. The human world record, held by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, is 57 minutes and 20 seconds. The machine beat it by nearly seven minutes.
Honor, the Chinese smartphone maker, built the robot. It stands 169 cm tall, weighs 45 kg and averaged roughly 25 km/h over the 21-kilometer course. Its legs are 95 cm long, a proportion modeled on elite runners, and a liquid-cooling system borrowed from Honor’s phones keeps it from overheating. Honor took all three podium spots, and each of its autonomous robots finished under the human record.
A year of change
The jump from last year is what stands out. At the first edition of the race, the winning robot needed 2 hours and 40 minutes, and only six of twenty machines finished. This year more than 100 teams entered, about 76 institutions in all, running alongside 12,000 human runners on separate courses. Roughly 40 percent of the robots ran fully on their own, using BeiDou satellite positioning and 5G. The rest were remotely controlled.
Honor also entered a remote-controlled robot that covered the distance in 48 minutes and 19 seconds. The 50-minute winner, though, ran autonomously.
Not everything went smoothly
Some robots fell within 200 feet of the start. One finished held together with packing tape. Technicians followed the machines in golf carts with stretchers ready, and several robots needed help along the course.
Wired noted that a straight run under controlled conditions is a long way from handling delicate objects or dealing with people, and doubted the winner would have done as well in the rain. The commentary on the aixploria site made a similar point: speed does not show that a robot can work a factory shift or care for an elderly person. This was a stress test, it said, not a product launch.
Honor unveiled the humanoid at MWC 2026 in March, as part of a five-year, $10 billion AI investment plan. Honor became independent from Huawei in 2020. Boston Dynamics has begun producing its electric Atlas for Hyundai, while Tesla continues to talk up its Optimus robot.
Sources
- A Humanoid Robot Set a Half-Marathon Record in China
- 50 Minutes Flat: Honor's Lightning Robot Smashes the Human Half-Marathon Record in Beijing
