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China Showcases Humanoid Runners in Beijing Marathon — But U.S. Tech Dominance is Still Clear (VIDEO)

April 20, 2025

Beijing half-marathon

China showcased more than 20 bipedal robots lin Beijing’s Yizhuang tech district on Saturday to compete in what was billed as the world’s first humanoid half-marathon.

While the spectacle turned heads and showcased notable progress in robotics, none of the machines came close to matching human endurance over the grueling 21-kilometer distance.

The event drew teams from Chinese universities and tech firms eager to demonstrate the country’s progress in humanoid robotics, a sector where the Chinese Communist Party is aggressively trying to close the gap with the United States, which continues to lead in cutting-edge models.

The robots varied widely in appearance and movement style, lurching, jogging, or wobbling along the course.

Many fell over and were helped back up to their feet by event organizers.

The leader of the winning team acknowledged that human runners still dominate in speed and stamina but claimed that their robot could rival U.S. counterparts in core technical capabilities.

Tang Jian, chief technology officer of the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center which developed the robots, told reporters the company was “very happy with the results”.

“We had set three goals for ourselves: first, to win the championship; second, to complete the entire half marathon with a single robot – a very important goal for us; and third, to finish the race in under three hours,” he said.

“We collected real-world running data from professional athletes and trained the robot so that its gait, cadence, stride length, and various postures could match those of professional runners as closely as possible.”

With the global race to develop functional humanoid robots heating up, the country that ends up on top of this technological arms race will likely gain massive economic and technological advantages.

In recent months, videos of Chinese humanoid robots executing stunts, from riding bicycles to performing backflips, have gone viral, often with the help of state media eager to spotlight these advances as a sign of technological development.

The post China Showcases Humanoid Runners in Beijing Marathon — But U.S. Tech Dominance is Still Clear (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.