A humanoid robot called Lightning, built by Chinese phone maker Honor, ran a half-marathon in Beijing on April 19 in 50 minutes and 26 seconds — nearly 7 minutes faster than the human world record of 57:20 set by Ugandan runner Jacob Kiplimo. This is a genuine milestone in robotics capability and part of China's broader push to lead in humanoid robot development, which the government has identified as a key frontier in tech competition. The event had over 100 robots competing on parallel courses to avoid collisions with the human runners, showing how quickly the technology has advanced from last year's inaugural race where most robots failed to finish.