China humanoid robot half-marathon to showcase

More than 300 humanoid robots participating in China's second robot half-marathon on Sunday will be facing tougher terrain designed to test their technical advancements, as Beijing seeks to develop the industry into a major pillar of its economy. Over 70 teams, almost five times as many as last year, will be competing in the 21 km (13 miles) race in Beijing that includes paved slopes and parkland. "It will certainly be interesting to see the progress in durability of components and battery lifetime compared to last year," said Georg Stieler, Asia managing director and head of robotics at Stieler, a technology consultancy. "Humanoid robot makers need to find a balance between quality in products which are still under constant evolution and price pressure." While all of last year's entrants were remotely controlled, this time almost 40% of the robot participants will navigate the course autonomously, the organisers have said, in a high-profile demonstration of the in

dustry's growing capabilities. But the event is also likely to highlight the challenges Chinese firms face as they try to create robots that can effectively mimic human movement and performance. In last year's race some robots crashed and fell near the starting line, while the winning Tiangong Ultra model, developed by the state-backed Beijing Innovation Center of Humanoid Robotics in collaboration with UBTech, finished in 2 hours and 40 minutes, comfortably ahead of its humanoid rivals but more than double the time of the human winner of the conventional race. Tiangong Ultra will navigate "fully autonomously" this year, relying solely on its sensors to avoid obstacles, and closely mimic the human gait through large-scale data simulation training, the Center of Humanoid Robotics said in a statement. "When the robot runs at speeds approaching those of professional human athletes, the time window for perception and decision-making is extremely short, placing very high demands on compu

ting power, algorithms, and system response speed," it said. Social media videos of the robots training in Beijing at night this month showed some models successfully imitating human running and reaching speeds of 14 km per hour, but others' movements were more jerky and some fell over or crashed into railings, suggesting they might struggle to make it to the finishing line. China dominates global humanoid robot installations, accounting for more than 80% of the 16,000 units installed worldwide in 2025, according to Counterpoint Research. The top U.S. vendor, Tesla, only accounted for 5% of global humanoid installations, the report said. Domestic market leaders AgiBot and Unitree each shipped more than 5,000 units last year - the highest globally - while Unitree has pledged to expand production capacity to 75,000 humanoid robots annually.