From nunchaku-wielding humanoids to synchronized “drunken boxing” routines, machines from four Chinese robotics firms dominated this year’s Spring Festival Gala on Monday, with more than a dozen robots appearing alongside human performers. 

The tightly coordinated sequences spanned martial arts demonstrations, comedy sketches, and dance numbers. Robots performed cartwheels, backflips, and shifted formations while running, demonstrating increasingly refined motion control. 

Known as chunwan, the Gala has aired on state broadcaster CCTV since 1983 and remains China’s most-watched television event, a Chinese New Year staple for hundreds of millions of households. By midnight, this year’s broadcast drew 677 million viewers across platforms. 

Younger audiences rose 10% year on year and accounted for more than 40% of total viewership, according to CCTV, underscoring the Gala’s push to attract digital-native viewers. One comedy sketch spoofed the wildly popular trope of a wealthy CEO falling in love with a janitor, a nod to China’s booming ultra-short video series industry. 

Technology featured prominently throughout the broadcast. Mentions of “quality productive forces” were more than eight times higher than last year, according to CCTV, as robotics and artificial intelligence took center stage across multiple segments.

AI tools were embedded throughout the show. ByteDance’s Doubao chatbot interacted with hosts between acts and voiced a humanoid robot in a sketch, while the company’s video model Seedance 2.0 generated animated backdrops for several performances.

Other segments featured pop ballads, regional folk and opera performances, and family-themed comedy sketches, with English-language sets by artists including John Legend and Westlife.

Built for stage

The prominence of humanoids onstage followed weeks of online discussion over reports that robotics firms had spent millions of yuan competing for a performance slot. Three companies — Unitree Robotics, Noetix Robotics, and MagicLab — delivered back-to-back live segments, with the hashtag “robots are fully invading Spring Festival Gala” quickly climbing to No. 2 on microblogging platform Weibo.

In an elderly-care themed skit, four different humanoid robots by Noetix Robotics played emotionally supportive home assistants, performing backflips and cartwheels alongside human actors, and another lifelike android was modeled on actress Cai Ming, one of the performers.

Unitree Robotics, which appeared at last year’s Gala in a folk dance routine, returned with a more complex martial arts display, wielding nunchaku, “dueling” human performers, and changing formations while running, a sequence the company described as the world’s first demonstration of highly dynamic, coordinated swarm control among humanoid robots.

MagicLab’s robots performed what the company called the first “Thomas 360” spin by a humanoid of comparable scale during the opening act, before joining a song themed around smart manufacturing.

Beyond the live segments, Galbot appeared in a pre-recorded microfilm showcasing wheeled dual-arm robots completing household tasks such as folding laundry, sorting goods, and cooking sausages.

AI assist

This year, AI tools extended beyond stage performances into hosting and visual production.

ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, deployed its Doubao chatbot which had the most visible presence, interacting with hosts between acts, voicing a humanoid robot in a sketch, and providing real-time text interpretation during the live show. 

ByteDance’s video generation model, Seedance 2.0, created animated backdrops for several performances. In one segment, ink-wash horses in the background appeared to leap off the canvas and gallop around the singer. The company described the gala as the model’s first client appearance after its public release last week, which has prompted discussion over deepfake risks.

CCTV said its in-house large language model was used for the first time during the gala to generate visual content and digital avatars.

The AI-heavy production drew both praise and scrutiny online. Some viewers pointed out visual inconsistencies — including mismatched petals and leaves in a flower-themed sequence — while a trending Weibo joke read: “The gala’s AI rate is higher than my thesis.”

Sharing the stage

After OneRepublic’s appearance last year sparked nostalgia, the 2026 Gala again featured several international performances.

At the main venue in Beijing, John Legend, Hélène Rollès, and Westlife performed classics including “All of Me,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “My Love.”

International acts also shared the stage with Chinese performers. Spanish flamenco and Hungary’s traditional Legényes dance appeared alongside ethnic performances from China’s Hani and Lisu groups, while Chinese and Austrian acrobats collaborated on a high-tech diabolo routine layered with motion tracking and light effects.

At a sub-venue in Yiwu, in the eastern Zhejiang province, Lionel Richie and Jackie Chan presented a pre-recorded rendition of “We Are the World.”

(Header image: Robots perform martial arts during the 2026 Spring Festival Gala. From CCTV News)