Huawei Signals a Serious Return to Running With Eliud Kipchoge

Huawei is signalling a renewed focus on performance-driven wearables with the announcement of a new partnership with marathon icon Eliud Kipchoge and the dsm-firmenich Running Team. The collaboration positions Huawei as the team’s official technology partner and hints at a serious return to the professional running watch space, five years after the debut of the original WATCH GT Runner.

Kipchoge’s involvement adds weight to that ambition. Widely regarded as one of the greatest distance runners of all time, his career has been defined by pushing perceived limits, most notably his historic sub-two-hour marathon. Yet beyond records, Kipchoge has consistently framed running as a universal pursuit, accessible to anyone willing to show up and put in the work.

That philosophy aligns closely with Huawei’s stated approach to wearable technology. The company has spent more than a decade building health and fitness products, shipping over 200 million wearable devices globally by mid-2025. Its systems now focus less on surface-level metrics and more on translating data into practical insight, something elite and everyday runners increasingly expect.

At the centre of the partnership is Huawei’s evolving wearable platform, which combines its TruSense health and fitness system with its Sunflower positioning technology, aimed at improving GPS accuracy for runners. According to Huawei, extensive testing with more than 100 runners has resulted in race performance predictions exceeding 97 percent accuracy, alongside machine-learning-driven fatigue assessment designed to help athletes train with greater precision.

For the dsm-firmenich Running Team, including athletes such as Kipchoge and Joshua Cheptegei, the partnership offers tools that support data-driven decision-making during training and competition. For Huawei, it provides real-world feedback from some of the most demanding users possible, feeding directly into product development ahead of its next running watch.

The collaboration also arrives as Kipchoge embarks on a new personal challenge. Following the completion of the Seven Star Marathon series in late 2025, he announced plans to run seven marathons across seven continents, using the journey to promote health, unity and access to sport. Technology, in that context, becomes less about optimisation alone and more about enabling longevity, recovery and sustainable performance.

Huawei has not yet revealed full details of its upcoming running watch, but the message is clear. This is not a lifestyle accessory aimed at casual tracking alone. The company is positioning its next release as a serious tool for runners who care about accuracy, insight and long-term progression, without excluding those just starting out.