The Beijing E-Town Half-Marathon () is an annual half-marathon held in Beijing and organized by Beijing E-Town. It features a parallel race for humanoid robots alongside human runners. At the inaugural event in 2025, there were few robot competitors with total of 21 robots from teams nationwide, and their performance was inadequate, with only one finishing within the 3 hour 10 minute time limit. In 2026, there were over 300 robots, and the best surpassed the human field of more than 12,000 runners, beating the human world record by about 7 minutes.
2025 The first race was held on 19 April 2025, after being postponed by six days due to strong winds. Although around 12,000 human participants took part, only 21 humanoid robots competed. Most of the robots performed poorly, with many overheating and falling during the race. All required human assistance from their trainers, including control guidance, battery replacements, cooling sprays, and even duct tape repairs.
Only six robots managed to finish the course. The winning robot was Tiangong Ultra, from the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, with a time of 2 hours and 40 minutes, compared to the men's winner of the race with a time of 1 hour and 2 minutes. It required three battery changes and fell once, but was the only robot to finish within the 3 hour 10 minute time limit. The second and third places were taken by robotic participants from Beijing's Noetix Robotics.
+Humanoid robotsPlaceRobot NameTeamDeveloperTimeCategory1stTianggong UltraBeijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center2 hours 40 minutesRemote-controlled2ndN2Xiao Wantong TeamNoetix Robotics3 hours and 37 minutes (exceeding the time limit)Autonomous3rdN2Whirlwind Kid TeamNoetix Robotics(exceeding the time limit)Remote-controlled
2026 Rule changes Following the experience of the first event, the rules were changed for the 2026 event. The main change was to encourage the robots to be autonomous rather than remote-controlled. If the robot was guided by human remote-control then its finishing time would be multiplied by 1.2.
Up to three battery changes were allowed for the robots. If the battery change was made on the course then there was no time penalty beyond the time required for the work. If the battery change was made off-course then there would be a time penalty. Robots could be replaced if they failed but there was a 15-minute time penalty for the first replacement and 20 minute penalty for the second.
The robots were arranged in a Z-shaped starting formation and released at 1-minute intervals to minimise the risk of collision or other interference. This separation was maintained through the race as robots were required to stay 5 metres apart.
2026 results In 2026, the race was held on 19 April over a course of 21.0975 kilometres from Tongming Lake Park to Nanhaizi Park in the Daxing district of southern Beijing. There were over 12,000 human runners and over 300 humanoid robots which ran on a parallel course for safety. The top three places were won by robots made by Honor, which also makes consumer electronic products such as smartphones.
The winner was a Lightning-model robot that finished in a time of 50:26 minutes, which is significantly faster than the human world record of 57:20 minutes which was set by Jacob Kiplimo at the Lisbon Half-Marathon in March. Another robot from Honor finished even quicker in 48:19 minutes but the event's handicapping rules penalised it for using human remote control rather than fully autonomous navigation like the winning robot, and so its time was increased by 20%. The second-place robot crashed into a barrier close to the finish and had to be helped up by humans to resume running.
2026 was the first time that robots surpassed humans in such a mass race and this impressed commentators and spectators as heralding the start of a new era in robot technology.
+Autonomous Humanoid robotsPlaceRobot NameTeamDeveloperTimeCategoryRef.1stLightningQitian Dasheng TeamHonor00:50:26Autonomous2ndLightningLeiting Shandian TeamHonor00:50:56Autonomous3rdLightningXinghuo Liaoyuan TeamHonor00:53:01Autonomous
+Remote-controlled Humanoid robotsPlaceRobot NameTeamDeveloperTimeCategoryRef.1stLightningJueying Chitu TeamHonor00:48:19 (raw time before 20% handicap)Remote-controlled
+HumansPlaceSexNameTimeRef.1stMenZhao Haijie1 hour 7:47 minutes2nd Yan Ruiyang1 hour 7:51 minutes3rdChen Zhicheng1 hour 9:46 minutes1stWomenWang Qiaoxia1 hour 18:06 minutes2ndYang Xiaoli1 hour 20:14 minutes3rdZhang Xiaomin1 hour 22:01 minutes
See also World Humanoid Robot Games Robot competition Ultimate Robot Knock-out Legend Bio-inspired robotics Robotic prosthesis control Leg mechanism
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