Robot wins Beijing half marathon, beating the human record by 7 minutes

Image: Facebook

During last year's shambolic Beijing robot half-marathon, humanoid machines tripped, shuffled, and occasionally shattered into pieces as they collapsed under the strain. Now, 12 months later, supporters looked on in awe as a new generation of speedy robotic racers left the human athletes in the dust.

More than 100 robots competed alongside 12,000 human counterparts, separated by a barrier to prevent collisions. Lightning, the winning bot developed by Chinese smartphone maker Honor, not only beat the best human that day but smashed the world record, set only last month.

The robot completed the 21 kms course in a blistering 50 minutes and 26 seconds, far faster than the 57 minutes and 20 seconds record set by Ugandan runner Jacob Kiplimo. That was more than three times faster than last year's winning robot, which finished the race in 2 hours and 40 minutes.

In another stark example of just how quickly robot technology has advanced, nearly half of this year's entries raced autonomously, navigating the winding course without human intervention.

Honor, a Huawei spin-off company, bagged all three podium spots with self-navigating robots - all of which posted world-record-breaking times.

Xioadi Du, an engineer from Honor's winning team, said that Lightning had been fitted with extra-long 90-95 cm legs to mimic the build of elite human runners. The robot is also fitted with liquid cooling technology to help manage the intense heat generated by its massive leg motors.

Interestingly, one Honor robot actually posted an even faster time of 48 minutes and 19 seconds but was pushed off the podium under the weighted scoring rules for being remotely controlled.