- Humanoid robots in the spotlight at China’s Spring Festival gala
- The event is China’s most-watched television broadcast and has been viewed 23 billion times.
- Some of the robots on display now have backlogs of orders as interest soars
China gave the world a glimpse of its latest humanoid robots at its 2026 Spring Festival gala on Monday – and the show was so impressive that many of its robot stars are now reportedly facing order delays.
The Spring Festival Gala is broadcast every year on the eve of the Lunar New Year and is the most-watched television program in China. State broadcaster China Central Television said the show had been viewed more than 23 billion times across all platforms.
To put that into context, Super Bowl LX attracted 137.8 million live viewers across NBCUniversal platforms, with its halftime show garnering 4 billion views in the first 24 hours.
It’s no coincidence that kung fu robots were the centerpiece of this year’s show. China is entering the first year of its next five-year plan, and robotics has been touted as a major growth driver. That meant the stage was set for Unitree Robotics, the country’s largest robot maker, to show how far ahead of Tesla it now is.
The Unitree G1 robot was the viral performance revelation, with its martial arts antics (see video below) so athletic that many suspected the videos were AI-generated. In reality, the G1 is an expensive, high-end humanoid capable of thriving in a very controlled environment.
Look on it
That didn’t stop interest from growing after his kung fu presentation. The G1 costs around 85,000 yuan in China (around $12,300 / £9,100 / AU$17,400), so it’s not exactly a consumer impulse buy. Yet the South China Morning Post says the G1’s first delivery dates have been pushed back to early March and its product page is creaking under the weight of interest.
The most interesting robot, although a little less athletic, is undoubtedly the Noetix Bumi. The child-sized robot appeared in a comedy skit during the Spring Festival Gala and costs just 10,000 yuan ($1,450 / £1,070 / AU$2,050), which looks like a high-end smartphone. It was once again the subject of great interest at retailer JD.com, and its delivery date was pushed back to the end of April.
None of these robots are breaking sales records, but they are part of a trend where humanoids are moving ever closer to the general public. The South China Morning Post again claims that Unitree aims to ship 20,000 humanoids this year, about four times as many as in 2025.
Elon Musk, meanwhile, recently said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Tesla would start selling its Optimus humanoid robot “probably next year.” At this point, they may have some catching up to do.
Waiting for the breakthrough of “embodied intelligence”
The big question with all these humanoid robots remains what they are actually used for and who they will serve.
Consumers are still interested spectators rather than buyers, with Unitree Robotics getting the bulk of its investments from industrial giants and venture capital firms. Rivals like UBTech have made deals to install their humanoid robots at border crossings, which, as we once thought, is not a dystopian nightmare at all.
Regardless of where they live, Unitree believes the game-changer for robots is not their impressive athleticism, but their minds. The company’s CEO and founder, Wang
“If there are breakthroughs in embodied AI models and robotic technology that can truly be applied on a large scale in the coming years, the heat could be 100 or even 1,000 times higher than it is now,” Wang told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. “I think it will far surpass the mobile Internet era.”
That’s a big statement, but these advancements are also a big “if.” As impressive as the Unitree G1’s acrobatics currently are, they remain something of a flashy technology demonstration. But 2026 and the Year of the Fire Horse could yet pave the way for this truly great robotic leap – and if it happens, companies like Tesla could fight for a place on the podium.
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