A humanoid robot competing against flesh-and-blood runners has broken the world record at a Beijing half-marathon, showcasing the rapid technological advancements achieved by Chinese makers.

Spectators lined the roads in Yizhuang in the capital’s south on Sunday 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), according to 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.

The humanoid half-marathon aims to encourage innovation and popularise the technologies used in creating and operating such machines.

In a sign of the industry’s strength, investment in robotics and so-called embodied AI amounted to 73.5 billion yuan ($10.8bn) in China in 2025, according to a study by a government agency. (Al Jazeera)

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The Mukesh Ambani-backed Addverb Technologies Ltd will be introducing its first-ever humanoid robot in 2025, according to a Bloomberg report.

This comes amid the introduction of such types of robots to help perform unimportant or time-consuming tasks by companies including Elon Musk’s Tesla, Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, Figure AI and some others including Chinese ones.

India and Asia’s richest person Ambani entered this space to take on players from the US and China.

The Noida-based Addverb’s humanoid robots can perform tasks relevant to industries such as fashion, retail, and energy, the report quoted CEO Sangeet Kumar as having said. However, prices along with specifics of actions the robots can perform haven’t been mentioned.

Apart from Addverb, Ambani also backed Hanooman AI, which was launched by BharatGPT this year.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk unveiled the the new Robotaxis and Tesla Optimus during the “We, Robot” launch event, and said humanoid robots would soon hit the markets.

Tesla is expected to launch the Optimus humanoid robots at around $20,000-25,000, with them likely becoming common by 2040.

Addverb’s Sangeet Kumar meanwhile said it would require “huge money” to build humanoids, but that his robots were ready to compete with global companies from the US, Europe and China, despite China’s robots being government-subsidised. (Hindustan Times)

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