A bright-red humanoid robot named Lightning finished a 13-mile half-marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds on Sunday, April 19, beating the current human world record by nearly seven minutes.
The robot, developed by Chinese smartphone maker Honor, competed in the Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon in an industrial park on the outskirts of the capital. Humans ran in a parallel lane to avoid collisions with more than 300 participating robots. Lightning outran all human competitors, whose fastest finisher clocked 1 hour, 7 minutes and 47 seconds, reported NBC News.
The performance eclipsed the human half-marathon world record of 57 minutes and 20 seconds set by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo in Lisbon last month, reported NPR. It also represented a sharp improvement over last year’s inaugural humanoid race, in which the winning robot finished in 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds. At least four humanoids achieved sub-one-hour times this year, compared with only six of 21 finishers in 2025.
Lightning stands about 5 feet 5 inches tall, with legs roughly 3 feet long, and was modeled after elite human athletes, per The New York Times. Its joints use a liquid-cooling system adapted from consumer electronics. About 40% of the robots navigated the course autonomously; the rest were remotely controlled. Honor’s robots swept the top three places under the event’s scoring rules for autonomous navigation.
Near the finish line, Lightning crashed into a barricade but recovered with human assistance, swung its short forearms to rebalance, and crossed the line. State media reported a separate remotely controlled Honor robot crossed first in 48 minutes and 19 seconds, but placed lower under weighted scoring.
Honor test development engineer Du Xiaodi told NPR the team was pleased with the results and sees broader applications ahead. “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, per NPR.
Honor team captain Ma Huaze described the pressure of the event. “I felt very nervous. The biggest challenge was having the courage to perform and test large-scale upgrades on a major competitive stage like this,” reported NBC News.
Fastest human finisher Zhao Haijie, 29, said the robot’s speed caught him off guard. “It just went whoosh right past me. I felt it was going quite fast.”
Spectators noted the rapid progress. Sun Zhigang, who attended last year’s race with his son, said, “I feel enormous changes this year. It’s the first time robots have surpassed humans, and that’s something I never imagined,” per NPR.
Wang Wen, who watched with his family, added, “The robots’ speed far exceeds that of humans. This may signal the arrival of sort of a new era.”
Xue Qingheng, who was involved in the event, put the achievement in perspective. “This year, we are only racing against ourselves. For us, this process is really about competing against who we were last year,” reported NBC News. He added, “Robots today have the body of Mike Tyson but are still missing a brain like Stephen Hawking. Once the brain problem is solved, the scope for imagination here is immense.”
The Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, which organized the race, confirmed the times via official channels. Organizers also deployed a robot traffic officer to direct participants with arm gestures and voice commands, per NPR.