A robot participated in the humanoid robot half marathon in Beijing on Saturday, April 19, 2025, the world’s first robot half marathon. Image source: AP
Stepping into mechanical steps, dozens of humanoid robots took to the streets of Beijing earlier Saturday, adding thousands of meat and blood to the world-first half marathon, demonstrating China’s drive to lead the global race in cutting edge technology.
A 21km (13 miles) event in the electronics town of China’s capital, a state-backed high-tech manufacturing hub, is known as a groundbreaking effort to test the limitations of the dual Pidell robot in reality.
In the cracks in the starter gun, as the Chinese pop song “I Believe”, repeated the speakers, the robots lined up alone and took their first tentative step.
Curious human runners line up on the roadside, patiently using their cell phones to prepare to shoot each machine as they prepare to leave.
A smaller Android fell to the ground for a few minutes and he cheered loudly on his own.
The other is powered by a propeller, designed to look like a transformer, steering the obstacle at the starting line, then hitting the obstacle and knocking the engineer down.
“Entering the track seems like a small step for humans, but it is a huge leap for humanoid robots,” Liang Liang, deputy director of the Beijing E-Town Management Committee, told AFP before the event. Nearby, engineers jogged next to the machine.
“The marathons helped to push humanoid robots to an industrialized step.”
About 20 teams from China are competing – the robots are 75 to 180 cm (2.46 to 5.9 feet) tall and weigh 88 kg (194 lbs).
Some run autonomously, while others are guided remotely by engineers, with machines and humans running on separate tracks.
The goal is to test Android’s performance and reliability – emphasizing that completing matches rather than winning is the main goal.
“I think that’s a big boost to the entire robotics industry,” Cui Wenhao, 28-year-old engineer at Noetix Robotics said of the half marathon.
“Honestly, there are few opportunities for the entire industry to run at full speed for such a long distance or duration. This is a serious test of batteries, motors, structures – and even algorithms.”
CUI said that as part of the training, the human robot races at half marathons every day, about seven minutes per kilometre, and he hopes it will complete the race without any problems.
He added: “But, just in case, we also have a backup robot.”
Another young engineer, Kong Yichang, 25, of Droidup, said the match would help “lay the foundation for a series of future activities involving humanoid robots.”
“The meaning of (race) is that human robots can truly fit into human society and start doing what humans do.”
China is the world’s second largest economy, trying to claim its dominance in the fields of AI and robotics, positioning itself as a direct challenger to the United States.
In January, Chinese startup DeepSeek claimed through chatbots that the chatbots that are traveling with the US are more cost-effective.
At a television-broadcast Lunar New Year party, dancing humanoid robots also attracted the audience.
publishing – April 19, 2025 08:31 AM IST
