Humanoid robot sprints to victory in Beijing, beating the human half-marathon world record

Beijing E-Town said about 40 per cent of the robots navigated the course autonomously, while the others were remotely controlled.

State broadcaster CCTV said a robot served as a traffic officer to direct the participants with it arm gestures and voice.

In China, technology has evolved into an area of competition with the US with national security implications. Beijing’s latest five-year plan vows to “target the frontiers of science and technology”. 

Speeding up the development of products like humanoid robots and their applications is part of the 2026-2030 plan for the world’s second-largest economy.

London-based technology research and advisory group Omdia recently ranked three Chinese companies – AGIBOT, Unitree Robotics and UBTech Robotics Corp – as the only first-tier vendors in its global assessment for shipment numbers for general-purpose embodied intelligent robots.

They all shipped more than 1,000 units of the robots last year, with the first two companies shipping more than 5,000 units, the report said.