A humanoid robot aptly named Lightning made history on the streets of Beijing over the weekend, beating the human half-marathon world record by several minutes.

A humanoid robot finished the 2026 Beijing E-Town Half-Marathon more than 7 minutes faster than the human world record.

The event featured a "human-robot joint run" where over 100 humanoid robots raced alongside roughly 12,000 human runners on the same 21.1 km course, separated by barriers for safety.