As CNN reports, local governments in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen have invested an estimated $10 billion in developing humanoid robotics to compete with humanoids from U.S. rivals like Boston Dynamics, Figure AI, and Elon Musk's Tesla.

A half-marathon in Beijing featured a road race between human runners and 21 robot models—and showed how far robots still are from being able to mimic human activity.

More than 20 two-legged robots competed in the world’s first humanoid half-marathon in China on Saturday, and – though technologically impressive – they were far from outrunning their human masters over the long distance.