An autonomous humanoid robot named Lightning completed a 13-mile half-marathon in Beijing on Sunday in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, setting a new record for both robots and humans. Developed by engineers at smartphone company Honor, Lightning was designed with 90 to 95 cm legs to mimic elite human runners and used liquid cooling technology similar to that in Honor smartphones. The robot outpaced all 12,000 human participants and broke the human world record of 57 minutes and 20 seconds.
This year’s race featured 300 robots from 102 teams, with 47 teams finishing the event. Among them, 18 teams used autonomous robots while 29 relied on remote control. The top three finishers were all Lightning robots, with the second and third autonomous models finishing in 51 and 53 minutes respectively. A remote-controlled Lightning recorded the fastest overall time of 48 minutes and 19 seconds, but the autonomous version was awarded first place due to category weighting.
The result marks a major leap from last year, when only six of 21 robots completed the race, none close to victory.
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