What just happened? There have been a few stories about robots that fail to impress recently, but China has shown that the humanoid machines continue to advance at a concerning pace. One of its robots has just entered the record books by walking for 66 miles across three days.
Chinese robotics company AgiBot has set a new world record after its humanoid bot, A2, walked 106.3 kilometers (66 miles) in three days.
On November 10, the robot set off from Jinji Lake in China's Jiangsu province, completing its journey on November 13 at Shanghai's Bund waterfront district. A2 is now in the Guinness Book of Records under "Longest journey walked by a humanoid robot."
A2 was able to complete the massive trek without powering down, thanks to AgiBot's hot-swappable battery system that allowed it to keep operating continuously during its trek. There's no mention of how many times the batteries had to be changed.
Impressively, the robot was able to traverse different surfaces including asphalt, tiled pavements, bridges, and slopes.
What's also unclear is the robot's level of autonomy, though there are plenty of suggestions that it was fully autonomous. Guiness used the word autonomous, and AgiBot said A2 was equipped with dual GPS modules along with built-in lidar and infrared depth cameras, "giving it the sensing capability needed for accurate navigation through changing light conditions and complex urban environments."
One also has to wonder how closely the robot was monitored during the walk. A brief section of the promo clip shows A2 with a small team following the machine.
Wang Chuang, partner and senior vice president of AgiBot, said that the robot used in the challenge was a standard, mass-produced commercial unit with no customized modifications and was identical to the robots delivered to clients.
Wang added that the robot can do more than complete long hikes. It boasts multilingual interaction, facial recognition and memory, autonomous guiding and delivery tasks, apparently.
There's been plenty of humanoid robot news from China this year. In April, robots from the country competed against humans during a half-marathon in Beijing. Unfortunately, most of the competing bots fell over, fell apart, or failed to finish.
In May, the Asian nation hosted the world's first mechanical mixed martial arts tournament, which saw four Unitree G1 robots stumble around like drunken children until one toppled over.
A2's 66-mile journey is certainly better than Russia's first humanoid robot, which collapsed on stage after taking about 12 steps.
Russia unveiled its new humanoid robot, AIdol, in Moscow and it immediately collapsed pic.twitter.com/4ymFUaiYEg
– Saint Javelin (@saintjavelin) November 12, 2025