Beijing (CNN) At a half-marathon held in Beijing on the 19th, a humanoid robot achieved a new world record by significantly outperforming a human. Just a year ago, robots were nowhere near able to catch up with humans.
CNN
The running robot, named “Lightning” (meaning “lightning bolt”), was developed by Chinese smartphone maker Honor. In this race, he completed the 21km distance in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, beating the human world record by more than six minutes.
According to the World Athletics Federation, the human half marathon world record is held by Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda, with a time of 57 minutes and 20 seconds.
The red humanoid robot, which was 169 centimeters tall, kept running while swinging its short arms to keep its balance and crossed the finish line without slowing down.
It was a moment when China, which competes with the United States in terms of technological strength, showed great progress over the United States, which had been far ahead in developing humanoid robots.
Lightning after the goal/Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
Last year, China held the world’s first humanoid robot competition in Beijing, where robots competed in sports such as soccer, boxing, and martial arts.
More than 100 teams participated in this year’s Humanoid Robot Half Marathon, almost five times as many as last year, but most had disappointing results.
In the races held that day with human participants, both male and female winners’ times exceeded one hour.
Organizers explained that the humanoid robot’s autonomous navigation function and instantaneous power were the keys to its victory.
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