China’s Robot Half Marathon Sets Record, Sparks Laughs

China as soon as once more staged a half-marathon for humanoid robots. It delivered a file — and loads of chaos.

A robotic from Chinese language smartphone and gadget maker Honor clocked 50 minutes and 26 seconds on the occasion in Beijing on Sunday, based on a WeChat submit by the Beijing Financial-Technological Growth Space.

That point beats the present human half-marathon world file set by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, who completed in 57 minutes and 20 seconds final month.

Honor’s robotic’s efficiency is a leap ahead from the inaugural race final 12 months, when the quickest robotic took 2 hours, 40 minutes, and 42 seconds to complete. Participation additionally surged from about 20 groups to greater than 100 this 12 months.

The race wasn’t nearly pace — it delivered loads of comic moments. Clips circulating on social media captured the messier aspect of the half-marathon.

In a video posted on Instagram on Sunday, one robotic stumbled on the beginning line, crashing face-first and breaking up on affect. Its limbs had been scattered throughout the monitor.

Workers rushed in with a stretcher, gathering the items in a scene that resembled a first-aid effort.

“Helpppp why did they run over and put it on a stretcher im CRYING,” one consumer wrote in a touch upon the Instagram submit.

One other Instagram video confirmed the Honor robotic veering right into a barricade late within the race. It recovered and stored going to the end line, whereas engineers jogged behind, clutching management gadgets. It made for an excellent snicker.

“Dudes had been actually attempting to maintain up with that factor,” a consumer commented on the submit.

On X, compilations of robots falling and malfunctioning through the marathon went viral. In a single video posted by @SilviusBerthold, robots had been seen crashing into barricades, collapsing mid-run, and twitching on the monitor.

China has been racing to develop and deploy humanoid robots, even experimenting with integrating AI brokers similar to OpenClaw.

In a January earnings name, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that the most important rivals to Optimus would possible come from China.

Nonetheless, mishaps involving Chinese language robots have continued to make headlines. In February, a humanoid robotic from XPeng flopped face-first throughout a public showcase. XPeng CEO He Xiaopeng likened the second to “kids studying to stroll.”

In one other incident earlier this 12 months, a humanoid robotic developed by Unitree kicked an engineer within the groin throughout a check.