Four Chinese robotics companies showcased their capabilities as scheduled on the world’s most-watched television stage. On February 16, New Year’s Eve, the 2026 CCTV “Year of the Horse” Spring Festival Gala featured Noetix Robotics, Unitree Robotics, Magiclab Robotics, and Galbot. These companies integrated their advanced machines into a variety of performances, ranging from comedy sketches and martial arts to musical numbers and micro-movies, signaling a major push for the commercialization of humanoid robots.
The debut robot performance featured Noetix Robotics in the comedy sketch “Grandma’s Favorite.” A total of five robots took the stage, beginning with a trio of small, medium, and large models that performed a variety of feats—including magic tricks, storytelling, backflips, and synchronized running—integrated into the plot.
Zhang Miao, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Noetix Robotics, noted at a press conference after the performance that compared to the larger scenes of dance and kung fu performances, the sketch scene had limited space, requiring the robots’ movements to be precise and clean. Therefore, Songyan Dynamics replicated the Spring Festival Gala stage under their own office building to refine the program.
Zhang highlighted that the robot utilizes 32 motors for facial animation, including 12 for the mouth alone, to replicate subtle human expressions, and to improve the lifelike quality of its engagement with the audience, engineers specifically expanded the neck’s degrees of freedom, allowing for more dynamic and responsive movement.
Next, Unitree Robotics took the stage as dozens of robots performed a martial arts routine titled “Wu BOT” alongside the Henan Tagou Martial Arts School. The units demonstrated high-difficulty maneuvers, including wielding long staffs and nunchucks, performing drunken boxing, vaulting over horse saddles, and executing wall-runs followed by backflips. A key highlight featured “sparring” segments between the robots and young martial artists. The performance concluded with an adult-sized humanoid robot delivering a fluid and highly coordinated sword dance.
Shang Yangxing, founder of BridgeDP Technology—a firm specializing in hardware debugging and motion design—observed that Unitree’s robots exhibited marked improvements in flexibility and complexity at this year’s Gala. He noted that while last year’s movements were relatively rudimentary, the robots’ current athletic capabilities have reached the level of professional martial artists, with certain maneuvers even exceeding the physical limits of the average person.
Shang estimated that, excluding choreography and maintenance support, a mature hardware platform would require a team of one to three motion-training algorithm engineers about one to two months to prepare such a routine. He noted that maneuvers such as jumping over elevated platforms and executing wall-supported rotational descents present the highest technical hurdles. These actions demand high-fidelity environmental interaction, requiring the robot to process and respond to physical surroundings with extreme fluidity to maintain stability.
Subsequently, Magiclab Robotics’ units served as backup dancers for the song “Manufacturing the Future.” The robots’ motion trajectories were precision-synchronized with the musical tempo, executing rapid pivots, dynamic jumping transitions, and complex choreographed sequences. Meanwhile, at the Yibin sub-venue, hundreds of “MagicDog” quadruped robots—outfitted in “giant panda” costumes—demonstrated a large-scale swarm control performance, highlighting the company’s capabilities in multi-agent coordination.
Magiclab Robotics said that to enable the robot pandas to tilt and turn their heads naturally, it developed a three-degree-of-freedom head drive, but after putting on the giant panda “clothes,” the robots’ heat dissipation capability decreased, so it optimized current and power management to keep the robots stable under high-load continuous operation.
Finally, Galbot’s robots appeared in the New Year celebratory micro-movie “My Most Unforgettable Tonight.” The robot spoke with a Beijing accent and demonstrated dexterous hand movements like fiddling with two walnuts, handing over water bottles, and passing scripts.
The “Big Four” of the Spring Festival Gala
The robots that appeared at the Spring Festival Gala have been launched on JD.com. Unitree’s Spring Festival Gala collaboration models G1 and R1 are priced at 84,900 yuan and 39,800 yuan respectively. Noetix Robotics’ E1 robot is priced at 79,700 yuan. Magiclab Robotics’ Z1 robot is priced at 177,800 yuan, and its MagicDog Pro is 24,800 yuan. Galbot’s wheeled robot is priced at 699,700 yuan on JD.com.
The four robotics firms maintain distinct market positions. Unitree Robotics, which built its foundation on quadruped “robot dogs,” launched its first humanoid model in 2023. Following its 2025 Spring Festival performance, it successfully established a brand identity for high-agility movement, leading to popular associations with “dancing robots.” Unitree capitalized on this momentum by organizing robot combat competitions, participating in the World Robot Games, and featuring as backup dancers for pop star Wang Leehom’s concert tour. In June 2025, founder Wang Xingxing revealed that Unitree’s 2024 revenue reached 1 billion yuan, with 2025 humanoid robot sales alone (excluding quadrupeds) totaling 5,500 units.
On July 18, 2025, Unitree became the first humanoid robot firm to initiate the A-share listing process. On November 15, Unitree’s counseling status changed to “counseling acceptance,” placing it just one step away from listing.
Galbot is deploying its technology across several key verticals, including retail, logistics sorting, industrial manufacturing, and pharmaceutical retrieval. The company distinguishes itself through its “embodied AI brain” technology, headlined by the NavFoM navigation foundation model and a proprietary, open-source synthetic dataset. Following a record-breaking Series A financing round exceeding $300 million in December 2025, Galbot’s valuation has reached $3 billion. Furthermore, according to investor reports, the company is actively preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Noetix Robotics specializes in the consumer market. In addition to the Spring Festival Gala model, it also released the “Bumi” humanoid robot priced below 10,000 yuan. Standing 94cm tall and weighing about 12kg, it is called the “world’s first high-performance humanoid robot under 10,000 yuan,” positioned for the home education scenario, with deliveries scheduled to begin in April 2026.
Jiang Zheyuan, founder of Noetix Robotics, explained that the “Bumi” achieved its high cost-efficiency through the strategic use of lightweight composite materials and proprietary, in-house developed motors and controllers. By streamlining the supply chain and maintaining a lean gross profit margin, the company was able to hit a significantly lower price point for the mass market. Jiang characterizes the “Bumi” as a “quasi-consumer grade” platform designed to offer emotional value and companionship. Targeted primarily at families, the robot is equipped to assist with childcare, English language tutoring, and programming education, with the ultimate goal of achieving rapid household penetration.
Magiclab Robotics is expanding into the consumer market as well, having launched the family companion robot dog MagicDog. Compared to ordinary robot dogs, it is equipped with a dog head featuring a screen, dog-ear styling, and touch sensors. Co-founder Gu Shitao believes that robot companies currently need to work toward long-term “technology peak-climbing” goals like entering factories, but in the short term, they also need to find scenarios that can be quickly implemented, such as inspections, serving as guides in 4S stores, or launching robot dogs that can tell stories to children.
Magiclab is also expanding into overseas markets. Gu noted that Magic Atom has deployed local teams in Europe, the US, and the Middle East. Since launching its overseas market layout in 2025, Magic Atom’s overseas business has accounted for more than 30%, reaching as high as 60% in a single month.