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Tiangong Ultra became the first winner of the Yizhuang human-robot half marathon event held in Beijing on Saturday. The robot completed the half marathon in 2 hours and 40 minutes, much slower than the human winner who took 1 hour and 2 minutes.
The robot was developed by the Beijing Human Robotics Innovation Center, with Xiaomi holding a stake in the company. A total of 21 robots and more than 12,000 human runners took part in the event, with each robot accompanied by a human operator to ensure it could finish the race. However, 70% of the robots failed to finish the race due to various technical issues.
Tiangong Ultra is 1.8 meters tall, weighs 52kg and ran at an average speed of 10 km/h throughout the race. This is the first human-robot half marathon event, with the half marathon involving only robots taking place in March.