Teams and organizers of Beijing's upcoming Humanoid Robot Half Marathon will fix technical and safety flaws exposed in a recent test event, and refine their race strategies ahead of the official competition later this month. The test, held from Saturday night to the early hours of Sunday, was run under full-process, all-scenario conditions to simulate the official race environment. Organizers closed off sections of Beijing for the drill, which replicated the official race route, traffic scheduling, equipment coordination, and emergency response protocols.
More than 70 teams joined the test, all part of the over 100 squads registered for this year's event. Nearly 40 percent of registered teams will field autonomous navigation robots, a key technological highlight of this year's competition.
The test delivered promising performance data, with teams recording notable improvements in robots' short-distance speed. Several teams have projected that their robots' finishing times will soon match those of elite human long-distance runners. Meanwhile, the drill also uncovered technical and operational challenges, and organizers say they will prioritize fixes for issues around mechanical reliability and on-site safety management ahead of the April 16 qualifying round.
For participating teams, the test provided critical real-world data that will guide their final preparations for the race.
"We'll definitely adjust our overall pacing, along with our race strategies and tactics, based on the results of this test run," said Chu Yang, Marketing Manager at Unitree Robotics.
Liang Liang, deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, said the test met expectations.
"Judging from the test results, the robots basically finished the race and met our expectations for the test," Liang said.
Co‑hosted by the Beijing Municipal People's Government and China Media Group (CMG), the official event will kick off on April 19.
Teams, organizers to fix flaws, refine plans after Beijing Humanoid Robot Half Marathon test
Israel's influence on the Trump administration outsizes the already significant sway it held over previous presidencies, contributing to miscalculations that ultimately led to strikes on Iran and putting the temporary ceasefire at risk, said a U.S. expert.
After about 40 days of deadly clashes, the United States and Iran reached a two-week ceasefire on Wednesday, with Israel supporting the truce. However, the truce remains deeply fragile, especially as Israel continues to attack Lebanon, which Iran has called a violation of the ceasefire and threatened a strong response if it continues.
However, the power of the Israel lobby in the United States, especially over the Trump Administration, may weaken its ability to rein in Israeli military action, said Anton Fedyashin, an associate professor at American University.
"The Trump administration has no one but itself to blame. Although it is acting in a very important context, which is the general, enormous influence of the Israeli government over all American administrations, except that under Trump, this influence of course is greater than ever before. Israel has a very powerful lobby in the United States. This is absolutely no secret; not only articles, but very good books have been written about this," he said in an interview with China Global Television Network.
Fedyashin said this influence, combined with poor intelligence, contributed to what he described as a misjudgment that Iran's government would easily fall.
"The problem is that while previous presidents have managed to somehow resist that lobby, Donald Trump seems to have completely fallen for Benjamin Netanyahu's case to convince him that the attack on Iran will be lightning fast, will achieve results very quickly. And this becomes a very important question about the quality of Mossad information, because along with Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House meeting, which happened on February 11, at least according to New York Times, was the head of the Israeli Mossad, and both Netanyahu and the head of Mossad were convincing Trump that Iran's government is on its last legs, that all it needs is a slight push, and that was a catastrophic misjudgment," he said.
US influence over Israel limited as attacks on Lebanon threaten to shatter ceasefire: expert
