China Is Hosting The World’s First Foot Race Between Humans and Robots

This is going to be one to watch.

Track Stars

In the race to build the best humanoid robots, China is quite literally ahead of the pack.

As the South China Morning Post reports, the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area — or E-Town — is hosting 12,000 humans and humanoid robots from more than 20 companies in a half-marathon race this April.

The race will be roughly 13 miles, and robotic competitors both cannot have wheels and must stand between 1.5 and 6.5 feet tall. In a statement, E-Town added that "competing robots must have a humanoid appearance and mechanical structure capable of bipedal walking or running movements."

Though this seems to be the world's first race explicitly pitting bipedal humans against robots, it won't be the first time a humanoid robot has taken part in a Chinese atheletic competition.

Last fall, a bipedal robot called Tiangong — not to be confused with China's space station of the same name, which translates to "heavenly palace" — jumped into Beijing's Yizhaung half-marathon towards its end. Though it only ran about 100 meters and wasn't particularly fast, the robot got a medal because it crossed the finish line (a participation trophy if we've ever heard of one).

Dog Gone It

Just a few week after Tiangong's surprise marathon debut, the the RAIBO2 robodog competed in a full marathon weeks later in South Korea. Though the adorable quadruped was significantly faster than Tiangong, it still took nearly four hours and 20 minutes to run the 26.2 mile race — nearly double the time of the human winner, who clocked in at around two hours and 36 minutes.

Because it's neither Chinese nor bidepal, RAIBO2 will unfortunately not be involved in the E-Town half-marathon. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, however, Tiangong will be one of the participants and will purportedly be capable of running 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) per hour by the time the race rolls around.

That same agency also reported that later this year, in August, Beijing will be hosting an all-robot sporting event that not only features track and field races, but also football — unclear on whether the outlet is using the American or European definition — and "comprehensive skills and other application scenarios."

Though we can't known how fast these running robots will be until we actually watch them, we can't wait to watch.

More on unique robots: Inventor Builds Six Robot Copies of Himself, Uses One to Give Speeches and Take Questions From Audience