China's Forward Leap in Humanoid Robotics
China’s strategy in robotics mirrors its success in the electric vehicle sector: building extensive supply chains, promoting research, and providing a market with diverse products and prices.
Beijing (ANTARA) - Videos of the running competition at The 2026 Beijing E-Town Half Marathon have been circulating widely across various media. The event, held on Sunday (19/4), featured Chinese-made humanoid robots racing against human runners on the track.
This year’s winner was “Lightening” or “Lightning”, developed by Honor, a Huawei subsidiary. The robot completed 21.1 km in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, faster than the human half-marathon world record held by Jacob Kiplimo (57 minutes 20 seconds), and far surpassing last year’s robot achievement, which took 2 hours 40 minutes.
Physically, “Lightning” stands about 170 cm tall with a combination of red on the body, head, and parts of the legs, and black on the hips and legs. Although not entirely human-like, its proportions are designed to resemble an elite runner.
Technologically, “Lightning” uses an integrated connection module with a peak torque of 400 Nm. Its liquid cooling system flows at over 4 litres per minute, maintaining stable temperatures during high-load operations.
Honor engineer Du Xiaodi stated that the robot was developed over a year. With legs measuring 90–95 cm and cooling technology adapted from smartphones, he is confident that humanoids like “Lightning” will bring significant changes to the industry, though they are still in the early stages of development.
This competition, now in its second edition, demonstrates rapid progress. The number of participants has now exceeded 100 robots, and some are even capable of surpassing the speeds of professional runners.
Nearly half of the participating robots can run on both legs, navigating more difficult terrain autonomously without remote control.
Behind this performance lies invisible supporting infrastructure. Companies like Qianxun SI provide high-precision satellite-based positioning services, while telecommunications providers’ 5G-Advanced networks deliver response times down to milliseconds.
In terms of industrial scale, data released by international research firm Omdia shows that global humanoid robot exports will reach 13,000 units in 2025, with China contributing around 90%. Chinese companies even dominate the top six positions in shipment rankings.
This growth is driven not only by cost efficiency but also by the strength of supply chains, integrated industrial support, and a large-scale innovation ecosystem.
Industry players also estimate that the development cost of humanoid robots in Shenzhen can be reduced to around 2 million RMB (approximately $282,000), thanks to the availability of core components and mature engineering capabilities.