The humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing has run faster than the human world record holder in a show of China’s latest technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, reportedly completed the 21-kilometre race on Sunday in 50 minutes and 26 seconds. That was faster than the human world record holder, Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward from last year’s inaugural race, during which the winning robot finished in 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds. But the competition, which was held alongside a race for humans, was not without hiccups – one robot fell flat at the start line, another bumped into a barrier.
Du Xiaodi, Honor’s test development engineer, said his team was happy with the results. Mr Du said its robot design was modelled on outstanding human athletes, with long legs of about 95 cm, and was equipped with what he called a powerful liquid-cooling system which was largely developed in-house. “Looking ahead, some of these technologies might be transferred to other areas,” he said. “For example, structural reliability and liquid-cooling technology could be applied in future industrial scenarios.”
While it will still take time to achieve widespread commercialisation of humanoid robots, spectators were already impressed by the technology. Sun Zhigang, who had been in the audience last year, watched the race with his son. “I feel enormous changes this year,” Mr Sun said. “It’s the first time robots have surpassed humans and that’s something I never imagined.” Wang Wen, who came with his family, said robots seemed to have stolen much of the spotlight from human runners in the event. “The robots’ speed far exceeds that of humans,” he said.
“This may signal the arrival of sort of a new era.”
Beijing E-Town said about 40 per cent of the robots navigated the course autonomously, while the others were remotely controlled. State media outlet Global Times reported a separate, remotely-controlled robot from Honor was the first to cross the finish line in 48 minutes and 19 seconds. But it said the winning one used autonomous navigation and won the championship under the event’s weighted scoring rules. State broadcaster CCTV reported that the runners-up, which were also from Honor and used autonomous navigation, finished the race in about 51 minutes and 53 minutes respectively. A robot served as a traffic officer to direct the participants with its arm gestures and voice, CCTV added.
In China, technology has evolved into an area of competition with the US with national security implications. Beijing’s latest five-year plan vows to “target the frontiers of science and technology”. Speeding up the development of products like humanoid robots and their applications is part of the 2026-2030 plan for the world’s second-largest economy.
AP
