The 2025 Beijing E-Town Half-Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon was held on April 19. In a global first, humanoid robots from more than 20 companies ran alongside about 12,000 humans on the 21.0975-km course but on a seperate track.
The humanoid robots differed greatly in appearance, height and movement patterns. The event required the robots to possess top-level autonomous navigation and organizers discouraged mid-competition battery swaps and robot replacement. In the end, robots from six teams managed to complete the race. Tiangong Ultra developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, became the champion of the robot division with a time of 2:40:42.
In the human division, Ethiopian runners won both the men's and women's half-marathons in a time of 1:2:36 and 1:11:7, respectively.
(Text and photos by Wei Yao)
