Robots beat the human record at the Beijing half-marathon

The winner of the Beijing half-marathon for humanoid robots completed the race today in 50 minutes and 26 seconds – much faster than the human world record of 57 minutes recently set by Jacob Kiplimo.

Comparing the running times of humans and robots may seem unfair; one media user he saw“My car can outrun a cheetah too.” However, the winning time is a big improvement over last year’s race, when The fastest robot finished in 2 hours and 40 minutes. (Back then, I joked that this “couldn’t be a happy time for anyone.”)

The Associated Press says that this year’s winner was built by Chinese smartphone manufacturer Honor. It seems that the winning robot was not the fastest, as another Honor robot finished in 48 minutes and 19 seconds. But it was controlled by distance – the 50:26 robot was independent and won because of weight.

About 40% of the participating robots competed autonomously, while the remaining 60% were controlled remotely, according to Beijing’s E-Town tech hub. Not all did as well as the Honor robots, with one robot falling off the starting line while another hit a barrier.