The Chinese New Year has arrived, and it has brought an eerie insight into the future alongside. The traditional celebrations of one of the most awaited days of the year have been infiltrated with some untraditional guests, robots. In videos going viral all over the internet, the celebrations which include traditional performances of art and culture are being executed not by humans celebrating the new year, but trained AI robots from prominent Chinese companies.
The Lunar New Year, also called Spring Festival kicked off on Tuesday and lasts for two weeks. It is observed across numerous Asian communities including Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and more, signalling the dawn of the new year.
2026 makes it even more special as this is the Year of the Fire Horse, which symbolises values of energy, passion and independence and only happens once in 60 years.
To celebrate the year, China broadcasts the annual CCTV Spring Festival gala. This year, the country’s most-watched TV show promoted its cutting-edge industrial policy and Beijing’s moves to dominate humanoid robots in the future. Four up-and-coming humanoid robot startups- Unitree Robotics, Galbot, Noetix and MagicLab demonstrated their products at the gala in the televised event.
The first three sketches of the program featured humanoid robots. The opening one featured Bytedance’s AI chatbot Doubao, while four Noetix robots appeared alongside human actors in a comedy skit in another and MagicLab robots executed a synchronised dance with human performers on the song “We Are Made in China” in a following performance.
MagicLab’s humanoid robot MagicBot Gen1 appeared at the grand opening performance, waving to the audience.
Then MagicBot Z1 did the “Thomas 360” move, becoming the first to do so.
Then, “Grandma’s Favourite”, a short stage comedy by Chinese actress Cai Ming, child actor Wang Tiangfang and Noetix’s robots N2, E1 and Bumi took place. The performance featured a bionic humanoid robot mimicking Cai’s appearance.
This was followed by Unitree’s martial arts performance “WuBot.” Unitree’s H1 robots performed table-vaulting parkour, 3-meter aerial flips, single-leg flips, and an airflare grand spin of seven-and-a-half rotations and other high-difficulty movements.
Over a dozen Unitree robots performed with waving swords, poles and nunchucks with children nearby. One fight sequence included a robot imitating wobbly moves and backward falls of China’s “drunken boxing” martial arts style, presenting not only the robot’s coordination but also its fault recovery, of getting up after falling down, all on its own.
In the final act, six MagicBot Z1 units and two MagicBot Gen1 units from MagicLab shared the stage with artists including Yi Yangqianxi and Jerry Yan in a song-and-dance performance.
Some of the images going viral online from the celebrations feature humanoid robots and robot dogs decked in traditional garments while doing the performances. Another image showed a woman greeting a robot dressed up as “God of Wealth” in a celebration akin to America’s Super Bowl.
However, for humans watching the performances on screens, the celebration was impressive yet eerie. “The moment I realised humans are doomed,” wrote a user on Reddit, while another wrote, “With the f—ing nunchucks?! Yeah, we’re cooked.”
China’s robotic future
China’s humanoid robots have been generating a lot of hype recently. This comes at a time when some of the major players in the manufacturing industry, such as AgiBot and Unitree prepare for initial public offerings in 2026 and domestic AI startups release frontier models during the profitable nine-day Lunar New Year public holiday.
In 2025, 16 full-size Unitree humanoids were seen twirling handkerchiefs and dancing along with human performers. Chinese President
Xi Jinping met five robotics startup founders in the past year, giving a boost and visibility to the sector turning out to be the country’s most profitable ones.
The CCTV show, which drew 79% of live TV viewership in China last year has been used to highlight Beijing’s tech ambitions, including its space programme, drones and robotics, said Georg Stieler, Asia managing director and head of robotics and automation at technology consultancy Stieler to Reuters. Companies that appear on the gala stage receive rewards in the form of government orders, investor attention and market access.
“It’s been just one year – and the performance jump is striking,” he added.
China accounted for 90% of the roughly 13,000 humanoid robots shipped across the globe last year, leaving behind rivals like the US which includes Tesla’s Optimus, as per research firm Omdia. This year, as per Morgan Stanley, China’s humanoid sales will more than double to 28,000.
At 10 pm on Chinese New Year’s Eve during the Gala’s live show, JD.com listed multiple robots for sale, including models featured at the Gala.
Within minutes of the launch, robots from brands including MagicLab, Unitree Robotics, and Noetix were sold out. Among them, two Galbot general-purpose robots G1 priced at nearly 630,000 yuan ($91,190. 04) were snapped up instantly, according to JD. com.
Elon Musk, one of the world’s leading tech billionaires, said he expects Chinese companies to be his biggest competitors as he pivots Tesla to focus on embodied AI and its flagship humanoid robot, Optimus. “People outside China underestimate China, but China is an ass-kicker next level,” he said last month.
