- Humanoid robots star at China’s Spring Festival gala
- The event is China’s most-watched television show, garnering 23 billion views.
- Some of the robots on display now have backorders as interest grows
China gave the world a glimpse of its latest humanoid robots at its 2026 Spring Festival Gala on Monday, and the spectacle was so impressive that many of its robotic stars are now reportedly on backorder.
The Spring Festival Gala airs annually on the eve of the Lunar New Year and is the most watched television program in China. The state broadcaster, China Central Television, claimed that the show garnered a whopping 23 billion views across all platforms.
To put this in context, Super Bowl LX drew 137.8 million live viewers on NBCUniversal platforms, and its halftime show garnered 4 billion views in the first 24 hours.
It was no coincidence that kung fu robots were the centerpiece of this year’s exhibition. China is entering the first year of its next five-year plan and robotics has been highlighted as a major driver of growth. That meant the stage was set for companies like Unitree Robotics, the country’s largest robot maker, to show just how far they are now ahead of companies like Tesla.
The Unitree G1 robot was the viral explosion of the performance, with its martial arts antics (see video below) so athletic that many suspected the videos were generated by AI. In reality, the G1 is an expensive, high-end humanoid that was able to thrive in a very controlled environment.
Look
That hasn’t stopped interest from increasing after his kung fu display. The G1 costs around 85,000 yuan in China (around $12,300 / £9,100 / AU$17,400), so it’s not exactly an impulse consumer purchase. However, the South China Morning Post claims that the G1’s first delivery dates have been pushed back to early March and that its product page has been creaking under the weight of interest.
The most interesting robot, although a little less athletic, is possibly the Noetix Bumi. The child-sized robot appeared in a comedy sketch at the Spring Festival Gala and costs just 10,000 yuan ($1,450 / £1,070 / AU$2,050), very similar to a high-end smartphone. It is apparently once again the subject of great interest at retailer JD.com, and its delivery date has been pushed back to the end of April.
None of these robots are breaking sales records, but they are part of a humanoid trend that is moving ever closer to the mainstream. The South China Morning Post again states that Unitree aims to send 20,000 humanoids this year, about four times more than in 2025.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk recently said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Tesla will start selling its humanoid robot Optimus “probably sometime next year.” At that point, they may have some catching up to do.
Waiting for the advancement of ’embodied intelligence’
The big question with all these humanoid robots remains what they are really for and who they will serve.
Consumers remain interested onlookers rather than buyers, and Unitree Robotics gets most of its investment from industrial giants and venture capital firms. Rivals like UBTech have reached agreements to have their humanoid robots at border crossings, which, as we have previously reflected, is not a dystopian nightmare at all.
Wherever they live their lives, Unitree believes that what changes the game for robots is not their impressive athletic ability but their minds. The company’s CEO and founder, Wang
“If there are advances in embedded AI models and robotics technology that can really be applied at scale in the coming years, the heat could be 100 or even 1,000 times higher than it is now,” Wang told China’s state broadcaster CCTV. “I believe this will far surpass the mobile Internet era.”
That’s a big statement, but those advances are also a big “if.” As impressive as the Unitree G1’s stunts are these days, they’re still something of an eye-catching tech demonstration. But 2026 and the Year of the Fire Horse could still pave the way for that big leap in robotics, and if that happens, companies like Tesla could be left fighting for a spot on the podium.
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