Following its debut last year, the second edition of a humanoid robot half marathon was held in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Yizhuang or E-Town, on April 19, with over 300 robots from more than 100 Chinese and international teams participating. The 21-km race track covered a variety of terrains, posing significant challenges to the robots' stability, battery endurance and heat dissipation. The robot Lightning, produced by a Shenzhen-based smart technology firm, won the race with a time of 50 minutes and 26 seconds. This was much faster than last race record of 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds, and also beat the men's record of 57 minutes and 20 seconds, set by Uganda's Jacob Kiplimo in March.

This year, the quality of humanoid robots has significantly improved compared to those at last year's inaugural event. Their ability to autonomously identify routes and maintain balance, endurance and speed are all far beyond those of last year's robots. Unitree Robotics, based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, and other companies participating in the event for a second year said the event is an "extreme stress test" for real and complex scenarios. Through participating in the competition, they aimed to identify problems and make improvements as humanoid robots transition from research and development facilities to factories and families.

For this reason, the Beijing robot half marathon is far more than just a competition. By creating a high-profile and challenging arena, it can provide an accelerated path for the entire humanoid robot industry, including technology verification, scenario exploration and market promotion. The event's diverse terrains and obstacles required each robot to perform approximately 250,000 precise joint movements and nearly 40 percent of the participating robots used autonomous navigation. The event not only tested these core robotic technologies, bringing them closer to commercial maturity, but also increased public awareness about the current level of China's robotics development.

The event has also attracted extensive participation from robot manufacturers, core component suppliers and algorithm teams, forming an industrial ecosystem that greatly promoted collaboration and integration across the supply chain. This kind of "supply chain showcase" not only demonstrates the strong advantages of China's industrial chain, but also enables leading enterprises in each segment to gain market attention and attract capital inflows, helping them accelerate the mass production and cost reduction of core components.

Breakthroughs in robotics technology will ultimately translate into widely available abilities that serve human society. The purpose of having robots run marathons is to verify their abilities under extreme conditions. The core concept behind the development of humanoid robots is to enable them to serve humanity.

The day before this year's half marathon, a Robot Warrior Challenge was held in Beijing, more directly demonstrating the vision of how humanoid robots will assist humanity in the future. In the challenge, robots had to complete a series of missions simulating disaster relief, testing the feasibility of humanoid robots replacing humans in high-risk, high-intensity scenarios.

Events such as these serve as public reminders of how close we are to day-to-day coexistence with intelligent robots, and also as a reminder that the ultimate goal of their development should be public benefit.

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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