A a humanoid robot aptly named Nyazi made history on the streets of In Beijing over the weekend, beating the world record for the human half-marathon by a few minutes.
A bunch of robots hosted the Beijing E-Town Robot Half Marathon on Sunday, facing a 13-mile (21-kilometer) race separate from human runners.
Developed by Chinese smartphone company Honor, Lightning completed the half-marathon in just over 50 minutes, beating the human world record by over 57 minutes.
Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
Lightning creators are happy with the result. Du Xiaodi, a development engineer at Honor, was quick to draw comparisons with other industries.
“Looking ahead, some of these technologies may be transferred to other areas,” said Du. “It’s similar to how the auto industry was first developed through competition.”
The event tested robots in real-world situations, from balance and endurance to navigation. Some ran autonomously, while others were remotely controlled, all competing on the course to avoid collisions with human athletes.
It wasn’t a mistake. Several robots tripped or veered off course, and one was carried on a stretcher after breaking into pieces in the fall.
Maxim Shemetov / REUTERS 
But the improvement is more noticeable compared to last year when most struggled to even finish the race.
Some viewers didn’t mind the failure.
“I am very happy,” said Sun Zhigang. “For the first time, it’s the first time that robots have overtaken people, and that’s something I’ve never imagined.”
“Their performance is very good,” Jiang Liangzhi said. “I didn’t expect the speed to be this fast, and they are all very stable.”
Reuters/Tingshu Wang 
The organizers said that the marathon has nothing to do with speed. It’s about pushing robotics technology beyond the lab with potential applications in manufacturing, transportation and emergency response.
Chinese companies are pushing ahead with the development of robotics technology for civilian and military use, but the Beijing robot race shows how quickly the future is moving from science fiction to sports.
Maxim Shemetov / REUTERS 
