China showcases humanoid robot at Spring Festival celebration
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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 effort to dominate humanoid robots and the future of manufacturing.
Four emerging humanoid robot startups – Unity Robotics, Galbot, Noetics and MagicLab – showcased their products at the gala, a televised event and touchstone for China’s equivalent of the United States’ Super Bowl.
The program’s first three sketches prominently featured humanoid robots, including a lengthy martial arts demonstration where more than a dozen unitary humanoids performed sophisticated fight sequences brandishing swords, batons and nunchucks in close proximity to human child actors.
The fight scenes included a technically ambitious scene that mimicked the staggering moves and falling backwards of China’s “drunk boxing” martial arts style, which featured innovations in multi-robot coordination and fault recovery – where a robot can get up after falling.
ByteDance’s AI chatbot Doubao was also prominently featured in the program’s opening sketch, while four Noetics humanoid robots appeared in a comedy skit with human actors and a MagicLab robot performed a synchronized dance with human actors during a song. we are made in china.
IPO planned
The hype surrounding China’s humanoid robot sector comes as major players including AGIbot and Unitri 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.
At last year’s ceremony, audiences were surprised by 16 life-size Unitarian humanoids twirling handkerchiefs and dancing in unison with human performers.
The Unitri founder met with President Xi Jinping at a high-profile tech symposium a few weeks later – the first of its kind since 2018.
Xi has met with five robotics startup founders in the past year, which is equivalent to the four electric vehicle and four semiconductor entrepreneurs he met in the same time frame, giving unusual visibility to the emerging sector.
The 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games saw androids from 16 countries compete for gold medals in events such as 100 meter hurdles and kung fu.
George Steeler, Asia managing director and head of robotics and automation at technology consultancy Steeler, said the CCTV show, which attracted 79 percent of live TV viewers in China last year, has been used for decades to highlight Beijing’s technological ambitions, including its space program, drones and robotics.
Steeler said, “What distinguishes this event from comparable events elsewhere is the immediacy of the pipeline from industrial policy to prime-time spectacle.”
“Companies that present on the festival stage receive tangible rewards in the form of government mandates, investor attention and market access.”
China’s strength
Behind the spectacle of robots running marathons and executing kung-fu kicks and backflips, China has put robotics and AI at the center of its next-generation AI+ manufacturing strategy, betting that productivity gains from automation will ease the pressure on its aging workforce.
“Humanoids encapsulate a lot of China’s strengths into one narrative: AI capability, hardware supply chain and manufacturing ambitions. They are also the most ‘legible’ form factor to the public and officials,” said Po Zhao, a Beijing-based technology analyst.
“In the early market, attention becomes a resource.”
Of the nearly 13,000 humanoid robots shipped globally last year, 90 percent were from China, according to research firm Omdia, far ahead of U.S. rivals including Tesla’s Optimus.
Morgan Stanley estimates China’s humanoid sales will more than double to 28,000 units this year.
Elon Musk has said he expects his biggest competitors to be Chinese companies as he pushes Tesla to focus on embodied AI and its flagship humanoid Optimus.
“People outside China underestimate China, but China is a next-level ass-kicking country,” Musk said last month.
