Happy Chinese New Year! My Favourite Performance at the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala: 《武bot》
Each year, as the lunar calendar turns, the world witnesses the largest annual human migration: millions of Chinese families journey back to their hometowns to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Homes are cleaned to sweep away lingering misfortune, red lanterns decorate doorways, and new crimson garments signal hope and renewal.
On New Year’s Eve, generations gather around the reunion dinner table, sharing dishes that promise prosperity and unity and exchanging red envelopes filled with blessings and money for the year ahead. As the evening deepens and fireworks begin to light up the sky, people start turning on their TVs to watch the true centerpiece of the night’s celebrations – the globally broadcast CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
Recognized by the Guinness World Records as ‘the world’s most-watched television program’, the Spring Festival Gala has been hosted annually on Chinese New Year’s Eve by CMG (China Media Group) since 1983, regularly attracting over a billion views and becoming a must-watch for virtually all Chinese families.
This lively show always set the festive atmosphere alight with its great singers, elegant dancing, cool visual effects, and the magician, who always comes up with some creative tricks. Nonetheless, there weren’t any performances that ever made me say ‘wow’ or genuinely amaze me.
However, there was one particular performance that definitely stood out to me at the Spring Festival Gala this year: 《武bot》, a performance featuring Unitree Robotics and Henan Tagou Martial Arts School.
Kung Fu Robot
Chinese martial arts has evolved to adapt to its environment throughout its history, which is how we got traditional kung fu and its modern competitive-based equivalent, wushu. But who would have thought that even the robots have learned this ancient craft?
In the segment 《武bot》(which translates to something along the lines of ‘kung fu bot’), tens of humanoid robots from the renowned Chinese robotics company Unitree performed complex kung fu maneuvers, backflips, handstands, drunken boxing, sword dances, and even nunchucks. Together with young martial arts students, they delivered an astounding show unlike anything the world has seen before.
Unitree’s robots are no strangers to the festive stage; if you watched past Galas, you would know that its robot dogs appeared in the 2021 program, while Unitree’s humanoid robots took part in the 2025 segment《秧bot》(the precursor to the《武bot》show this year).
Comparing the robots from past Gala performances, it isn’t difficult to notice how huge a leap Chinese robotics has seen in just the past year. While the robots in《秧bot》remained mostly stationary, only featuring slight walking, the robots in《武bot》can perform actions similar to those of an actual martial artist. To be honest, if these newer robots were dressed up from head to toe, I would have quite a hard time differentiating humans from the humanoid! Sure, we’ve all seen boxing robots before, but the fluency of these robots’ movements is definitely ahead of our time.
There was also an amusing side to the stunning《武bot》performance. In the scene where a group of robots performs drunken boxing, one of them falls over mid-pose, only to do a kip-up and dragon roll to get back on its feet. Later in an interview, Unitree’s CEO Wang Xingxing said that this was an intentional act to add to the theatrical aspect of the performance, reflecting the ‘drunkenness’ of the robots. It seems that even robots have learned how to fake a fall!
Buy Your Own Bot?
Being a tech enthusiast myself, I began wondering, ‘What are the specs of these robots?’ It turns out the answer is that they’re unbelievably powerful.
Two robot models participated in the Spring Festival Gala this year. The robots that performed all the backflips, drunken boxing, and other complex maneuvers were the G1 series, a highly capable humanoid weighing roughly 35 kilograms and standing 130 centimeters tall. With a moving speed of 2 meters per second, a sustained battery life of 2 hours, and an 8-core CPU as its main computing chip, it packs a reasonable amount of power considering its size. The base model can also be upgraded to the G1 Edu, which features an NVIDIA Jetson Orin AI computing module capable of 275 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) and dexterous three-fingered hands.
The other humanoid robot we saw, which played the legendary Monkey King (Sun Wukong) and did the sword dance, is the H2. With a height of 180 centimeters, the H2 is not only taller than the G1 but also has higher degrees of freedom (DOF), enabling it to mimic the actions of a human much more fluently. Weighing roughly 70 kilograms, it is powered by an Intel i5 and has a built-in speaker that enables conversations with the robot. It can be upgraded to the H2 Edu, which features the insanely powerful NVIDIA Jetson Thor, capable of 2070 TOPS thanks to its 128GB of memory.
Surprisingly, these beasts of machines are actually on sale to the public, which honestly feels illegal considering what they’re capable of. In various videos posted on their official WeChat channel, Unitree demonstrated the boxing capabilities of their robots. Although they still need some definitive ‘training’ regarding their boxing technique, their ability to regain control of their balance after being knocked down in real-world scenarios is genuinely amazing.
So how much does each robot cost? Well, the base model G1 starts at $13,300, while the base model H2 starts at $29,900. In comparison with other humanoid robots on the Western market, Unitree’s robots are actually quite affordable while simultaneously being very powerful. If you want a decent humanoid even cheaper than the G1, Unitree also offers the R1, an agile 123-centimeter-tall robot starting at only $4,900.
Conclusion
When I saw for myself the capabilities of Unitree’s H2 and G1 humanoid robots, my first instinct was ‘OMG, I definitely want one of these.’ It’s still quite mind-blowing how far the robotics industry has come in recent years. I still remember the excitement a few years back, when robots just started being able to do backflips. Now, they can accurately replicate virtually all human actions with high precision. An important reason for the drastic improvements in the robotics industry is the increasing efficiency of computing and artificial intelligence algorithms. At this rate of ‘evolution’, I’m not surprised if we wake up one day ten years in the future with highly intelligent AI-powered robots as an integrated part of human society, in a similar fashion to that depicted in popular sci-fi films like I, Robot (2004).
So, what are your thoughts on Unitree’s robots? Are you also tempted to get one? I hope you learned something new today. If you enjoyed reading, please consider liking, sharing, commenting, and boosting this article. Thank you for reading. In the year ahead, may your ambitions take flight, your efforts bear fruit, and your dreams unfold into blessings greater than anything you ever imagined. Happy Chinese New Year!