Batteries vs. muscles: Humanoid robots join half-marathon in Beijing (2025)

In the future, humanoid robots are expected to increasingly assist or even replace humans in fields like healthcare, logistics and construction. A crucial requirement for this is the ability to walk reliably on two legs – even across long distances and in real-world settings. That’s exactly what was tested in Beijing, where humanoid robots took part in a half marathon for the first time.

As Werner Kraus from Fraunhofer IPA explained to the German website ingenieur.de, the robots’ participation was mainly a technical endurance test. The focus was on assessing the durability and energy efficiency of their drives, along with battery performance. A key challenge is balancing runtime and weight – larger batteries offer more range but also add weight, reducing overall efficiency.

The approximately 13-mile course led participants through the "E-Town" innovation district in southern Beijing. While human runners raced for top times, the robots had a different mission: simply to finish. In their category, speed wasn’t the goal – instead, the focus was on stability, endurance and reliable performance. The machines, ranging in height from 30 to 71 inches and weighing up to 194 pounds, ran either autonomously or with support from their developers.

The fastest human completed the race in 1:11:07, while the quickest robot, named "Tiangong", finished in 2:40:24. Other robots took much longer. Some wobbled, stumbled or only managed to move forward with assistance. Still, the event proved that humanoid robots are capable of covering long distances, even if they aren’t (yet) efficient or reliable enough for practical, everyday use. A few highlights from the race can be seen in the livestream recording below:

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As a child in the 90s, my Gameboy was my steady companion. After school, the PlayStation was fired up. When I finally got my first PC, I was completely hooked. My passion for gaming has never waned since. For me, writing for Notebookcheck means reporting on topics that are really close to my heart - in addition to gaming, I also like to write about e-mobility, photovoltaics and innovative gadgets. When I'm not sitting at my computer, I'm probably on water rescue duty on the Baltic coast or trying to counteract the downsides of my geek life - namely sitting for long periods - at the local swimming pool.