Overview
- Beijing’s E‑Town district hosted the second robot half marathon on Sunday with more than 100 robot teams running in a dedicated lane alongside roughly 12,000 human racers.
- Organizers named Honor’s autonomous entry the champion with a 50:26 time, which they noted under event conditions was faster than the human world record of 57:20.
- Another Honor robot finished in 48:19 under remote control, then lost ranking under the event’s penalty for non‑autonomous runs after a fall near the line captured in spectator video.
- Beijing E‑Town said about 40% of robot finishers navigated the 21.1 km course without human input, though several falls and at least one pre‑start failure with smoke highlighted reliability risks.
- The jump from a 2:40:42 winning time in 2025 to roughly 50 minutes this year signals rapid gains that Chinese officials link to a broader 2026–2030 plan to speed humanoid‑robot development.