A humanoid robot built by Chinese company Honor won a half-marathon race in Beijing on April 19, 2026, finishing in 50 minutes and 26 seconds — faster than the human world record of 57 minutes. This represents a massive leap from last year when the fastest robot took two hours and 40 minutes, though the even-faster Honor robot (48:19) lost out because it was remote-controlled while the winner was autonomous. The story is well-sourced across AP, NYT, NBC, and Al Jazeera, though it's worth noting that comparing robot and human marathon times conflates entirely different engineering challenges—a point the article itself acknowledges with a wry comment about cars outrunning cheetahs.