Humanoid Robots Beat Humans in Beijing Half-marathon

Dozens of Chinese-made humanoid robots showed off their fast-improving athleticism and autonomous navigation skills as they whizzed past human runners in a half-marathon race in Beijing, China on Sunday. 

The race's inaugural edition last year was riddled with ‌mishaps, and most robots were unable to finish. Last year's champion robot recorded a time of 2 hours 40 minutes, more than double the time of the human winner of the conventional race. 

This year's contrast was stark. Not only had the number of participating teams increased from 20 to more than 100, but several robot frontrunners were noticeably faster than professional athletes, beating the human winners by more than 10 minutes. 

Unlike last year, nearly half of the robot entrants navigated the tougher terrain autonomously instead of being directed by remote control during the 21-km (13-mile) race. The robots and 12,000 men and women ran in parallel tracks to avoid collisions.

You'd better believe it, Elon Musk's Tesla cybertruck is a dustbin container!

😂😂😂

Kung Fu Humanoid Robots at Spring Festival Gala

China's most-watched TV show, the annual CCTV Spring Festival gala, on Monday showcased the country's cutting-edge industrial policy and Beijing's push to dominate humanoid robots and the future of manufacturing. 

Four rising humanoid robot startups – Unitree Robotics, Galbot, ‌Noetix and MagicLab – demonstrated their products at the gala, a televised event and touchstone for China, said to be comparable to the Super Bowl for ‌the United States. 

The program's first three sketches prominently featured humanoid robots, including a lengthy martial arts demonstration where over a dozen Unitree humanoids performed sophisticated fight sequences waving swords, poles and nunchucks in close proximity to child performers. The fight sequences included a technically ambitious one that imitated the wobbly moves and backward falls of China's "drunken boxing" martial arts style, showing innovations in multi-robot coordination and fault recovery – where a robot can get up after falling down.

 

The program's opening sketch also prominently featured Bytedance's AI chatbot Doubao, while four Noetix humanoid robots appeared alongside human actors in a comedy skit and MagicLab robots performed a synchronised dance with human performers during the ‌song "We Are Made in China". 

The hype surrounding China's ⁠humanoid robot sector comes as major players including AgiBot and Unitree prepare for initial public offerings this year, and domestic artificial intelligence startups release a raft of frontier models during the lucrative nine-day Lunar New Year public holiday. 

Last year's ⁠gala stunned viewers with 16 full-size Unitree humanoids twirling handkerchiefs and dancing in unison with human performers. 

Unitree's founder even met President Xi Jinping weeks later at a high-profile tech symposium – the first of its kind since 2018. 

Xi has met five robotics startup founders in the past year, comparable to the four electric vehicle and four semiconductor entrepreneurs he met in the same timeframe, giving the nascent sector unusual visibility. 

The CCTV show, which drew 79% of live TV viewership in China last year, has ‌for decades been used to highlight Beijing's tech ambitions, including its space programme, drones and robotics, said Georg Stieler, Asia managing director and head of robotics and automation at technology consultancy Stieler. 

"What distinguishes the gala from comparable events elsewhere is the directness of the pipeline from industrial policy to prime-time spectacle", Stieler said. "Companies that appear on the gala stage receive tangible rewards in government orders, investor attention, and market access". 

Stieler added: "It’s been just one year – and the performance jump is striking", and highlighting that the robots' impressive motion control showed Unitree's focus on developing robot "brains" – the AI-powered software that enables them to ‌complete fine motor tasks that can be used in real-world factory settings. 

China accounted for 90% of the roughly 13,000 humanoid robots shipped globally last year, far ahead of US rivals including Tesla's Optimus, according to research firm Omdia. 

Morgan Stanley project that China's humanoid sales will more than double to 28,000 ‌units this year. 

Elon Musk has said he expects his biggest competitor to be Chinese companies as he pivots Tesla toward a focus on embodied AI and their flagship humanoid Optimus. 

"People outside China underestimate China, but China is an ass-kicker next level", Musk said last month.

China Dominates Global Humanoid Robot Shipments in 2025

China humanoid robot makers shipped most of the roughly 13,000 units delivered worldwide in 2025, far surpassing US rivals such as Tesla and Figure AI, according to research firm Omdia. 

China-based start-up Shanghai AgiBot Innovation Technology shipped an estimated 5,168 humanoid robots last year, the highest globally, followed by Unitree Robotics and UBTECH Robotics, Omdia data showed. 

China could be the most important market for humanoids. It is projected that the global total addressable market will be $9 trillion by 2050, with China accounting for more than 60% of that figure, CNBC had reported. 

Price competitiveness has been a major advantage for Chinese manufacturers. Chinese start-up Noetix Robotics unveiled Bumi, a 94-cm humanoid robot priced at 9,998 yuan ($1,380), slightly less than Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro Max, which starts at 9,999 yuan in China, in October 2025. Unitree offers an entry-level humanoid robot priced at about $6,000, while AgiBot charges roughly $14,000 for a scaled-down model. 

By comparison, Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk has previously said the company’s Optimus humanoid robots could cost between $20,000 and $30,000, although the product has yet to enter full-scale production, according to Bloomberg. 

"China currently leads the United States in the early commercialization of humanoid robots", Andreas Brauchle, a partner at consultancy Horváth, told CNBC. "While both countries are expected to build similarly large markets over time, China is scaling more rapidly in this initial phase". 

In November 2025, Shenzhen-based UBTECH Robotics released a video showing hundreds of their Walker S2 humanoid robots standing in formation and walking in unison into shipping containers. 

The footage drew skepticism from Brett Adcock, founder and CEO of US robotics firm Figure, who described it as "fake". 

The company’s chief brand officer, Tan Min, said the reaction reflected "a lack of understanding" of China’s manufacturing strength and its advanced robotics ecosystem. "Critics should come to China and see for themselves the vibrant growth in the humanoid robotics sector and engage directly with the industry chain", Tan said. 

Humanoid robots are designed to resemble human form and movement, combining artificial intelligence algorithms with complex hardware such as advanced semiconductors. 

Last year, Unitree’s dancing humanoid robots gained nationwide attention during China’s Spring Festival Gala, helping fuel a surge in development and investment. China now has more than 150 humanoid robot manufacturers, according to the South China Morning Post. 

Omdia expect global humanoid robot shipments to reach 2.6 million units by 2035, driven by advances in AI models, dexterous robotic hands, and self-reinforcement learning that are making humanoids viable for industrial, service, and eventual household use.

Two Billionaires Have An Altercation

Donald Trump and Elon Musk, two of the most media-addled personalities of our time, are publicly torching their relationship by posting on the public social media networks they each respectively own. 

Shortly after leaving DOGE – refer to my May 30 post "Elon Musk Leaves DOGE" – Musk took to his site X to call Trump's "big, beautiful" budget bill, a "disgusting abomination" and posting: "Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong". He argued that the bill will irresponsibly add to the US national debt, and encouraged his followers to phone their representatives to express opposition to the spending plan.

Trump did not stay quiet for long and he suggested that Musk was upset about the removal of subsidies and mandates for electric vehicles, which could affect his Tesla business.

Musk, of course, denied this was the case and wrote: "Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill". ["Pork" is a term used in US politics to describe wasteful government spending, particularly on things meant to curry favour with particular groups or local areas]. 

Trump had also mentioned that he was “very disappointed with Elon” who “knew this bill better than anyone”.  

Musk, just as promptly, went on X, to respond: “False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” He then went on to say that without him, “Trump would have lost the election”. 

On Thursday, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised Biden didn’t do it”. 

Trump also asserted he’d asked Musk to leave government, and Musk “just went CRAZY!” 

Exactly, twelve minutes later, Musk responded, “Go ahead, make my day”. Then, he went on to repost a tweet calling for Trump to resign, arguing that his global tariff plan will trigger a US recession, and he even suggested without evidence that Trump appears in unreleased files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. [Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking and died by suicide while awaiting trial. Trump was president at the time. He said he knew Epstein "like everybody in Palm Beach knew him" but had a "falling out with him a long time ago"]. 

Then, on Friday, Musk posted, “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately”. [The SpaceX Dragon is used to fly cargo and crew to the International Space Station]. 

However, later, he appeared to back down from that threat, saying in response to a post on X urging him to cool off: "Ok, we won't decommission Dragon". 

Who’s winning? Well, Tesla stock declined 14 percent yesterday, closing at $284.70. Trump can hurt Musk imminently, and not just with the spending bill. 

Musk, The Washington Post reported, began his career in the US by working there illegally. That could potentially complicate his naturalization and create grounds for the Trump government to strip him of his citizenship, and possibly even deport him back to South Africa. Would that be legal? I don't believe Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would give a damn.

I reckon this altercation is harmful to both. But we shall see if both will put aside their egos to kiss and make up!  

At the Indonesia Open, a marathon battle was expected, but Pearly Tan-Thinaah Muralitharan had other ideas as they ruthlessly swept aside Japan's Rin Iwanaga-Kie Nakanishi to storm into the semi-finals on Friday. 

The world No. 4 blew away the Japanese world No. 5 duo 21-6, 21-18 in just 37 minutes in their quarter-final clash, sealing their maiden semi-final appearance at a Super 1000 event. 

Iwanaga-Nakanishi had arrived in Jakarta riding high after finishing runners-up at the Singapore Open last week, but were no match for the in-form Malaysians.

Elon Musk Leaves DOGE

Elon Musk (left) is stepping down from his role as the most visible face behind the Department of Government Efficiency. 

As a special US government employee, Musk was only permitted to serve in the government for 130 days. Measured from Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, he would hit that limit today.  

Still, it does not stop him from asserting his disappointment with Trump's "big, beautiful" budget bill, which proposes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a boost to defence spending. 

And, Musk leaves behind a thorny and tangled legacy that includes thousands of layoffs, the evisceration of government agencies, and frequent clashes with top members of the Trump administration. BBC had claimed that an estimated 260,000 out of the 2.3 million-strong federal civilian workforce have had their jobs deleted or accepted redundancy deals as a result of DOGE. But, in some cases, federal judges blocked the mass firings and ordered terminated employees to be reinstated. 

In April, he even criticized White House trade adviser Peter Navarro over the sweeping tariffs Trump had imposed on trading partners. In a series of posts on X, Musk called Navarro a “moron” and added that Tesla “has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks”. He followed with an apology, saying the comparison was “so unfair to bricks”. 

Musk also leaves Washington well short of his goal of reducing federal spending by $1 trillion, only having cut around $175 billion. 

In fact, his time in government overlapped with a significant decline in sales at his electric car company. Tesla sales dropped by 13% in the first three months of this year, the largest drop in deliveries in its history. The company's stock price also tumbled by as much as 45%, but has mostly rebounded and is only down 10%. 

I don't think anybody will miss Musk. And Tesla may be too far gone to be saved.

Tesla Stock Rebounds As Sales Slip Abroad

First, Donald Trump came out to boldly endorse Tesla (read my March 12, 2025 post "Donald Trump Turns White House Into Tesla Showroom"). 

Second, his US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick did a televised pitch for investors to buy Tesla shares on the Fox News Channel on March 19. 

And third, CEO Elon Musk himself held a public all-hands meeting at Tesla for the first time last week. During the meeting, Musk pleaded for people to “hang on to their Tesla stocks”. 

On Monday, Tesla's stock surged 10%, fueled by money from retail investors – everyday enthusiasts buying stocks for themselves – though it is still down more than 30% year-to-date. JPMorgan said $7.3 billion flowed in over the past two weeks. It came after Tesla’s stock crashed 50% from its December high and the above-mentioned efforts to pump it back up.

And Tesla’s price-to-earning ratio surged back to 133 based on Tesla’s current earnings, which Wall Street are now expecting to be cut in half this quarter as the automaker’s deliveries are crashing. In turn, it should result in Tesla’s price-to-earnings ratio doubling. The last time Tesla traded at these levels, Musk warned Tesla employees that the stock would get crushed “like a soufflé being smashed by a sledgehammer” if it didn’t show profit growth.

Tesla’s net income crashed 50% last year on lower car deliveries and lower gross margins as Tesla tried to avoid further decline in demand with bigger discounts and subsidized financing rates. While most of Wall Street still believe that Tesla will go back to growth in 2025 with a consensus of 1.9 million vehicle deliveries, they are starting to adjust that down due to the clear demand issues Tesla are facing this quarter.

TBH, I have no idea how Tesla will fare and I couldn't care less. But methinks, the respite is temporary and there's a real possibility that all this pumping could lead to those retail investors holding the bag. 

And in Europe, Tesla deliveries are down 43%, according to figures there. It should be concerning for Tesla as electric vehicle sales are up 31% during the said January-February period. 

New Tesla registrations in the European Union fell to 19,046 in the first two months of the year from at least 37,000 in the same period of 2024, according to a report published by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) on Tuesday.

In February alone, Tesla registrations commanded 1.8 percent of the total market and 10.3 percent of the Battery-Electric Vehicle market, down from 2.8 percent and 21.6 percent, respectively, in the same month last year.

Ageing design, rising competition and controversy around Elon Musk are seen driving this reversal of Tesla sales.

Domestic Terrorist Labeling

Forget about the First Amendment to the US Constitution. 

If you are critical of Elon Musk (or Tesla) or you're pro-Palestine, you're already taking the first small step to be branded a domestic terrorist.

On March 18, US Attorney General Pam Bondi (above pic) labeled vandalism targeting Tesla dealerships and cars as “domestic terrorism” and added the Department of Justice have already charged “several” alleged perpetrators. Some could face minimum five-year prison sentences. [For background info, read my March 11, 2025 post "Tesla Protests Are Popping Up Across the US"]. 

And on Sunday, she too described pro-Palestinian student protesters as “domestic terrorists”, warning that universities could lose federal funding if they fail to address (supposedly) anti-Semitism on campus. [Kindly read my posts "The College Protests Sweeping Across the US"; "China Launches Probe to Study the Dark Side of the Moon"; "US Colleges Drop or Downsize Graduation Ceremonies" published April 28, 2024; May 04, 2024; and May 10, 2024 respectively]. 

FYI, the federal government define domestic terrorism (DT) as ideologically driven crimes committed by individuals in the United States that are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy or conduct of a government.

Note that the US doesn't have a stand-alone federal domestic terrorism law although at least 32 states and Washington DC, have their own state-level domestic terrorism laws. Critics, of course, don't want such a law, saying this would only be weaponized by the federal government and would make it too easy for "an administration to label unpopular groups or political enemies as a domestic terrorist outfit. 

Then again, Bondi is already labeling the anti-Elon Musk bunch and pro-Palestinian groups as domestic terrorists!

Today, the United States is hopelessly divided and divisive. The nation, it seems, has become irrevocably fractured along political and ideological lines – Republican/Democrat, liberal/conservative, red/blue, et cetera. And it is only getting worse. 

If you believe US Attorney General Pam Bondi, domestic terrorism is on the rise in the country.

BYD's Breakthroughs Jolt EV Market

Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD's shares are flying at all-time highs after the company unveiled new battery technology that takes just five minutes to charge. 

BYD's Hong Kong-listed shares rose as much as 6% on Tuesday and closed at 401.40 Hong Kong dollars. They jumped again on Wednesday and were up more than 4% at one point in morning trading, at around HK$418. 

Their stock price has gained over 50% since the start of the year and their market capitalization of about HK$1.2 trillion ($154.4 billion) is now neck-and-neck with Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), their main rival in batteries, according to FactSet data. 

The new charging platform means that drivers can get enough juice for a 400 kilometer journey in roughly the amount of time it takes to refuel a petrol-powered vehicle. 

"We have entered an era where fuel and electricity can be refueled at the same speed", BYD chairperson and founder Wang Chuanfu (left) announced. "We have moved from an era where 'people wait for their cars' to an era where 'cars wait for the people'", he added, to drive home the message.

BYD's new system gives them extra horsepower for challenging US rival Tesla, which are already under heavy pressure from the rise of Chinese EV competitors. 

Last year, Tesla saw their first-ever decline in annual deliveries, while their stock has been hammered in early 2025. Tesla shares fell 5.3% in New York on Tuesday, after BYD's bombshell, and are down more than 40% year to date. More broadly, the announcement adds to a wave of excitement about Chinese technology that has swept the stock markets.

The system will be installed in two EV models, the Han L sedan and the Tang L sport utility vehicle, which are to be released in April. Pre-order prices have been fixed at between 270,000-350,000 yuan ($37,300-$48,400) for the Han L and between 280,000 yuan and 360,000 yuan for the Tang L. 

Another part of the equation is BYD's charging infrastructure. On Monday, the company also revealed plans to distribute a new charger with a maximum output of 1,360 kW. They target to build more than 4,000 charging stations equipped with these superfast chargers nationwide.

In China, Tesla use charging output of 250 kW, while Huawei Technologies have announced that they will install chargers with a maximum output of 600 kW. BYD's chargers promise a significant step up, although much hinges on the extent of their adoption. 

The latest breakthroughs, which will underpin many of their future electric vehicles (EVs), could provide another boost for BYD, which have come from behind to rival US manufacturer Tesla as the world’s top EV seller. Tesla’s China shipments plunged 49 percent in February from a year earlier to just 30,688 vehicles, the lowest monthly figure since July 2022.

BYD once again are upping the ante on the industry, noting that the announcement came soon after the company said they were ready to "democratize intelligent driving" by putting their latest God's Eye autopilot system in most of their models, which claimed to achieve over 1,000km of autonomous driving without intervention. 

BYD rock! According to SNE Research, in respect to global EV sales from January to December 2024, BYD are ranked No. 1 in the world by selling 4.137 million units and posting a 43.4% YoY growth.

Donald Trump Turns White House Into Tesla Showroom

US President Donald Trump sought to boost plummeting Tesla share prices on Tuesday by briefly turning the White House into a showroom, announcing he was buying one of the electric cars made by close advisor Elon Musk and threatening anti-Musk protesters with “hell”. 

The unprecedented product endorsement by a sitting president came after Tesla shares cratered amid market fears spurred by Trump’s tariffs and backlash to Musk’s controversial role in slashing the US government through DOGE. [But DOGE’s cost-cutting has hit increasing resistance, including protests, court rulings and some pressure from lawmakers].

“I said, ‘you know, Elon, I don’t like what’s happening to you, and Tesla’s a great company’”, Trump told reporters while he stood alongside Musk, his top donor, in front of a red Tesla on the South Portico of the White House.

“He has never asked me for a thing, and he’s built this great company, and he shouldn’t be penalized because he’s a patriot”, Trump continued.

Elon Musk knew Trump is the best person to bet on!

Paris St-Germain are through to the Champions League quarter-finals. 

The disappointment of losing the first game and playing really, really well and coming back to Anfield and soaking up pressure and hitting Liverpool on the break in the twelfth minute. Then, taking it to extra time and the shootout and producing four perfect penalties. They deserve to go through. 

The shootout: PSG 4 Liverpool 1. Penalty misses from Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones meant PSG dumped high-flying Reds out of Europe!

The US Economy Is Suddenly Looking A Bit Shaky

It didn't take long for doom and gloom to slowly but surely manifest itself under US President Donald Trump's presidency. And many people will be cheering.

I just saw a news report that the Nasdaq Composite plunged more than 10% from its record high set in late 2024. The S&P 500 is also down nearly 9% from its February peak. And Monday saw the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 posted its worst day since September 2022, wiping out more than $1 trillion in value. Investors sold shares in the so-called “magnificent seven” – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones lost almost 900 points, slipping below its 200-day moving average for the first time since November 01, 2023.

The market selloff comes as Trump’s back-and-forth tariff announcements have unnerved investors and stoked fears that the US economy could be headed for a major slowdown, or even a recession. 

The spreading fear is that Trump's tariffs – which are taxes on goods applied as they enter the country – will lead to higher prices and dent growth in the world's largest economy.

Even Trump in an interview with Fox News that aired on Sunday acknowledged that the economy was in a "period of transition", when asked about suggestions of a potential recession. 

Kevin Hassett, an economic adviser to Trump, pushed back against those projecting a bleak outlook for the country. In an interview with CNBC, Hassett said Americans can be optimistic about the US economy and that that tariffs imposed on Canada, Mexico and China were already bringing manufacturing and jobs to the United States. 

"There are a lot of reasons to be extremely bullish about the economy going forward", he pronounced. Still, he admitted there were some "blips in the data" for this quarter, which he pinned on the timing of Trump's tariffs and the "Biden inheritance".

The above aside, a Harris poll from February 13 to 15, among a nationally representative sample of 2,131 US adults found that 51% of Americans now believe that the US economy is worsening, while just 20% said it was improving and 29% said it was the same.

Tesla Protests Are Popping Up Across the US

Tesla are facing a growing backlash. Their facilities across the US are facing protests and vandalism in response to the political role, the automaker's CEO Elon Musk (right) has played in the US administration under Donald Trump. 

Most "Tesla Takedown" protests have been peaceful, but a few have been destructive with fires intentionally set at Tesla showrooms and charging stations in Colorado and Massachusetts last week. That was followed by six arrests in New York over the weekend when hundreds of protesters occupied a Tesla showroom. 

There has also been a spike in Cybertruck vandalism across the US, and some car owners are defacing their own Teslas in protest of Musk. One woman showed up to a protest outside a Burbank Tesla on Sunday with an expletive and Musk's name scrawled in chalk across her white Model X sedan. Another car carried an "Anti Elon Tesla Club" sticker. 

The protests illustrate a growing unease over Musk's influence on the US government since President Donald Trump allowed him to create the cost-cutting task force Department of Government Efficiency. So far, DOGE have fired or offered buyouts to about 100,000 federal employees and gained access to the sensitive personal and financial information of millions of Americans. 

Critics have resorted to calling the tech billionaire "President Musk", arguing that he has too much power in the White House. Some at the protest in Burbank, California held signs that said "Deport Elon" and "Boycott Swasticar" – with protesters attempting to connect the car to fascism.