In a historic moment a humanoid robot competing against human runners has broken the world record at a Beijing half-marathon.
According to Al Jazeera, spectators lined the roads in Yizhuang in the capital’s south on Sunday, April 19, to watch the machines and their human rivals race, each group in a separate lane to avoid accidents or collisions.
Some of the robots were highly agile, moving like famous runners such as Usain Bolt, while others had more basic capabilities.
The winning humanoid, equipped with an autonomous navigation system and running for Chinese smartphone maker Honor, completed the roughly 21km (13-mile) course in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, at an average speed of about 25km/h (15.5mph), as per state broadcaster CCTV.
That was far faster than the top human in Sunday’s race, while also surpassing the current men’s world record of 57:20, held by Ugandan runner Jacob Kiplimo.
The result represented spectacular progress from last year, when robot-runners fell repeatedly, and the best took more than two hours and 40 minutes to finish.
The number of humanoid entries jumped from about 20 last year to more than 100, according to organisers, a sign of the sector’s growing popularity.
Han Chenyu, a 25-year-old student who watched the racetold the AFP news agency she was enthusiastic about such leaps in technology and thought the event was “pretty cool”.
She added, “as someone who works for a living, I’m a little worried about it sometimes. I feel like technology is advancing so fast that it might start affecting people’s jobs."
Humanoid robots have become a common sight in China in recent years, in the media as well as in public spaces.
