Unitree Subsidiary Lingyi Wins Mount Tai Robot Climb in 43:41

Beijing Lingyi Technology, a Unitree Robotics subsidiary, won the legged-robot race up Mount Tai on Monday in 43 minutes 41 seconds, finishing a 3.9-kilometer course with nearly 600 meters of elevation gain and more than 3,100 stone steps, TechNode reported. Shanghai Gaoyi Technology and the Lingju team from Linxai Intelligent followed. In the load-bearing event, where quadrupeds hauled fragile cargo including eggs and watermelons, Linxai's Lingshi team finished in 1 hour, 51 minutes, 29 seconds.

The humanoid class ran a shortened route from Hongmen Square to Doumu Palace, won by Beijing's Zhishen Lingyue team in 27 minutes 26 seconds. Nearly 90 teams from embodied-AI companies, universities and research institutes entered across four events, including powered exoskeleton assistance.

Organizers at the state-run China Media Group framed the mountain's rocky, cobbled terrain as a "natural extreme testing ground" for machines meant to leave the lab, and the course delivered on the brief. Robots encountered motor overheating, automatic power reductions, sideways posture deviations, and unstable gaits after payload changes at supply points. One humanoid in a bandana "collapsed in a heap on the cobbled streets" before engineers rushed in to repair it, Manila Times reported; another "tripped and clattered down a whole flight of stairs, coming to rest next to a rubbish bin."

The climb lands alongside other Chinese humanoid-robotics coverage we tracked the same day, including Nvidia humanoid reference platforms shipping with China-made hands.