A humanoid robot has won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing, running faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps.

The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21-kilometre race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, according to a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race kicked off.

That was easily faster than the human world record holder, Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race.

The robot’s performance marked a significant step forward from last year’s inaugural race, in which the winning robot finished in 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds.

But the race wasn’t without hiccups — one robot fell flat at the start line, another bumped into a barrier.

Beijing E-Town said about 40 per cent of the robots navigated the course autonomously. The remainder were remotely controlled.

The Honor robot crosses the finish line. Photo: AAP

In China, technology has evolved into an area of competition with the US with national security implications.

Beijing’s latest five-year plan vows to target the frontiers of science and technology.

Speeding up the development of products like humanoid robots and their applications is part of the 2026-2030 plan for the world’s second-largest economy.

British technology research and advisory group Omdia recently ranked three Chinese companies — AGIBOT, Unitree Robotics and UBTech Robotics Corp — as the only first-tier vendors in its global assessment for shipment numbers for general-purpose embodied intelligent robots.

They all shipped more than 1000 units last year, with the first two companies shipping more than 5000 units, the report said.