Robots race with human runners - 2nd June 2025

An unusual race took place recently in China, when robots competed with humans over 21 km, a half marathon. The robots were all produced by Chinese firms. Like actual humans, they came in a range of sizes, between 1.2 metres and 1.8 metres.

Each of the robot runners was joined by its human coach, who was there to guide it and replace its batteries. Just like a normal race, one or two incidents happened along the way.

The fastest robot was Tiangong Ultra, a machine that was created by Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre. According to their head of technology Tang Jian, they'd carried out a great deal of research on professional athletes.

Tang Jian: "We collected real-world running data from professional athletes and trained the robot so that its gait, cadence, stride length, and various postures could match those of professional runners as closely as possible."

For humanoid robots to run with humans is a world first. It provided Chinese robotics companies with the chance to show off their latest developments. It was also an opportunity to test how strong and reliable their creations were.

Tang Jian: "The main purpose behind doing the half marathon is to prepare for future - or rather, near-future - industrial applications. When our robots are deployed in factories, commercial settings, or everyday life, we expect them to work continuously, 24/7, without failure. Running the marathon is essentially an extreme test of reliability and stability."

While the human runner's winning time was one hour and two minutes, this was half the speediest robot's time. However, for people like Huang Xiaoyu and her daughter who'd come to watch the robots in action, this situation won't last. Soon, it'll be robots who are first to cross the line.

Huang Xiaoyu: "Right now, humans still run faster, but in the future, do you think robots or humans will be faster? [Huang's Daughter: "Robots!"] Looks like in the future, it might just be robots that run faster."