In Beijing this weekend, a humanoid robot named Tiangong Ultra crossed a finish line that few imagined robots would even approach. It had fallen once, had its batteries swapped three times, and still took nearly three hours to run 13.1 miles. But it finished — a testament, of sorts, to the mechanical resolve of a machine designed to walk like us.

Thousands of spectators cheered. Some runners even stopped mid-race to take selfies with it. Not far behind — or rather, very far behind — other robots limped, wobbled, and sometimes simply collapsed during what organizers billed as the world’s first humanoid robot half marathon.

The event, a parallel race to the Beijing Yizhuang Half Marathon, marked a peculiar new chapter in China’s pursuit of “embodied intelligence” — meaning AI embedded in physical forms.

Twenty-one bipedal robots took to a separate track alongside 12,000 human runners. Only six finished. The rest buckled under the weight of gravity, poor cooling systems, and perhaps, too much ambition.

Falling, Flailing, Finishing

During Saturday’s race, it seemed like the humanoid bots were competing to see which was the clumsiest. One robot, named Huanhuan, shook its head uncontrollably and moved at a snail’s pace. Another, Shennong, resembled a sci-fi prop with drone propellers and eight wheels — then promptly spun in circles, crashed into a wall, and dragged its operators down in the process.

Throughout the course, duct tape was a lifeline. It reattached limbs, held heads in place, and even served as makeshift shoe glue. Nearly every robot in the race fell down, overheated, or needed a serious emergency intervention from their human handlers — spraying coolant, swapping batteries, shouting commands, and at times, holding leashes like they were walking a skittish mechanical dog.

“The impressive thing about going from a 5k to a half marathon is really a hardware robustness problem,” Alan Fern, a robotics professor at Oregon State University, told WIRED. “Until five years ago or so, we didn’t really know how to get robots to walk reliably. And now we do.”

He wasn’t wrong. His own team once sent a robot on a 5k run in 2021. It fell twice. On Saturday, most of the humanoids at Beijing’s event suffered similar fates. But despite the setbacks, one can’t help but feel a sense of awe at the pace of progress.

Why a robot marathon? Why now?

This strange public display wasn’t just for sport. It was a flex. It’s China’s was of telling the world that it now builds sophisticated robots capable of enduring the messiness of real-world terrain. “Although humanoid robots still have a long way to go, simply completing a course of this distance is a remarkable feat,” researcher ZongZe Wu of Tsinghua University told The Diplomat.

The spectacle attracted millions of viewers on Chinese social platforms and was livestreamed by CCTV. To government policymakers, the half marathon was part media stunt, part practical milestone in Beijing’s aggressive strategy to dominate the emerging field of humanoid robotics.

In 2023, China laid out a sweeping two-stage plan to achieve global leadership in this space. The first phase is to push out technically robust robots and industrial prototypes—now largely achieved, according to Chinese officials. The second is building a full-stack supply chain and turn humanoid robots into everyday economic drivers, from factory labor to elder care. Imagine churning out millions of these things every year, robots whose bodies look and operate like those of humans — and that includes running, too.

Saturday’s half marathon was an early proof-of-concept. According to a 2024 analysis by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Chinese firms already produce the majority of components necessary for humanoid robots—everything from servo motors to AI software. Unitree Robotics, which made headlines earlier this year for a national TV performance of dancing robots, now develops most parts in-house.

From sprint to strategy

For all the slapstick mishaps — robots falling face-first, being rebooted mid-race, or melting circuits from the strain — the broader message wasn’t lost. China is serious about building the world’s foremost robotics ecosystem.

In the last year, Beijing has poured subsidies into humanoid robot R&D. Cities like Shenzhen and Chengdu are rolling out policies to attract robotics firms. And the national strategy goes further — backing data access for training, real-world deployment in elder care homes, and pilot programs for humanoids in public services. In Beijing’s Zhongguancun district, a humanoid robot now works as a receptionist — a glimpse of what’s to come.

There’s a deeper purpose to all of this. With China’s working-age population shrinking and youth unemployment rising, robots offer both a productivity boost and political win. The elder care robotics market alone reached $1.1 billion in 2024, with projections doubling by the end of the decade.

“This feels like witnessing the start of something transformative,” said 16-year-old Sam Zhu, who watched the marathon online. “Potentially as significant as the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.”

China’s approach illustrates a divergent model: deploy early, iterate in public, and integrate fast.

Saturday’s event wasn’t about who could run the fastest. It was about who was willing to trip in front of the world and get up anyway.

Beyond the finish line

By the time Tiangong Ultra crossed the finish line in 2 hours and 40 minutes, most human runners had already gone home. The robot’s operators looked more exhausted than their creation, having walked the entire course beside it while spraying coolant and keeping it steady.

Still, the effort paid off. Tiangong Ultra was the only robot to complete the race within the cutoff time for human participation awards. “You wanna think of these robots more like running a remote control car through the race,” said Fern. “But the robots don’t have wheels.”

The real takeaway is perhaps that robots are still nowhere near replacing human runners—or most human workers. But they’re wobbling toward something new. Not with grace. Not even with speed. Just the kind of stubborn, duct-taped perseverance that tends to matter when revolutions begin.