In a race between humans and robots, machines take the victory in a sign of advancements

ChinaIn a race between humans and robots, machines take the victory in a sign of advancementsLast year's half-marathon ended in humiliation for the machines racing against human competitors: this year, things were very different.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00The robot from smartphone manufacturer Honor, winner of the 2026 Beijing E-Town Humanoid Robot Half-marathon, is seen on Sunday.Lintao Zhang / Getty ImagesShareAdd NBC News to GoogleApril 19, 2026, 2:47 AM EDT / Updated April 19, 2026, 3:57 AM EDTBy Janis Mackey Frayer, Dawn Liu and Erin TanBEIJING — It was not even close as a bright red Chinese humanoid named “Lightning” lived up to its name in a half-marathon pitting humans against robots, smoking its competition on Sunday.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.The bipedal humanoid, developed by smartphone maker Honor, blazed through the 13-mile race in just 50 minutes 26 seconds, besting all 12,000 human competitors and even surpassing the human world record for a half-marathon, set by Jacob Kiplimo in Lisbon last month, by nearly seven minutes. Lightning was slowed down only slightly when it crashed into a railing near the end of the race, with the machine helped back up, recovering to make a dramatic finish. It was a clean sweep for Honor's robots, who also took second and third place medals on the podium.“I felt very nervous,” said Ma Huaze, captain of one of the winning Honor teams. “The biggest challenge was having the courage to perform and test large-scale upgrades on a major competitive stage like this.”The event in an industrial park area of Beijing featured more than a hundred robots, a significant increase from last year’s inaugural race, when several of the 21 participating humanoids stumbled, careened out of control, or just laid down at the starting line, and only six managed to make it across the finish line. The fastest robot last year, an imposing machine...