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A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21-kilometer (13-mile) race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, according to a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race kicked off.
That was faster than the human world record holder, Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward from last year’s inaugural race, during which the winning robot finished in 2 hours, 40 minutes, and 42 seconds.
But the competition, which was held alongside a race for humans, wasn’t without hiccups—one robot fell flat at the start line, another bumped into a barrier.
Du Xiaodi, Honor’s test development engineer, said his team was happy with the results. Du said its robot design was modeled on outstanding human athletes, with long legs of about 95 cm (around 37 inches), and was equipped with what he called a powerful liquid-cooling system, which was largely developed in-house.
“Looking ahead, some of these technologies might be transferred to other areas. For example, structural reliability and liquid-cooling technology could be applied in future industrial scenarios,” he said.
While it will still take time to achieve widespread commercialization of humanoid robots, spectators were already impressed by the robots. Sun Zhigang, who had been in the audience last year, watched this year’s race with his son. “I feel enormous changes this year,” Sun said. “It’s the first time robots have surpassed humans, and that’s something I never imagined.”
Wang Wen, who came with his family, said robots seemed to have stolen much of the spotlight from human runners in the event. “The robots’ speed far exceeds that of humans,” he said. “This may signal the arrival of sort of a new era.”
This article was provided by The Associated Press.