Searching for Programs in AI and Robotics: Unveiling the Technological Battle Behind the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Horse

The just - concluded Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Horse became the center of a hot topic across the entire internet because of the widespread presence of AI and robots!

From the aesthetically pleasing singing show of the "Twelve Flower Goddesses" to skits, martial arts performances, songs, comedy skits, and New Year's Eve micro - movies, many programs became showcases for cutting - edge technologies such as AI and robots.

Netizens joked that the 2026 Spring Festival Gala could also be called the first year of the Robot Spring Festival Gala.

At the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, several robots from Songyan Dynamics performed a skit with Cai Ming, known as the "grandmother of robots", and they also created a lifelike "Cai Ming bionic robot". Unitree's robots performed with nunchucks and drunken boxing here, and appeared at the branch venue in the guise of the domestic game "Black Myth: Wukong". Magic Atom's robots were busy doing group dances and making spicy noodles. Galaxy Universal's robots participated in the micro - movie. Last year, the robots still seemed clumsy, but this year they can all do flips.

Other robot companies also took over the Spring Festival Galas of local satellite TV stations. Zhi Yuan Robotics appeared in multiple local Spring Festival Galas. Zhongqing Robotics performed the "Ax Gang" dance at the Shenzhen Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala. Luming Robotics performed cross - talk with Feng Gong at the Liaoning Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala. Optics Valley East Intelligence jointly performed the Chinese traditional music piece "Horse Racing" with real musicians at the Hubei Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala. The intelligent inspection quadruped robot Qilin of China Southern Power Grid appeared at the Guangxi Spring Festival Gala. Ruiman, Lingbao, and Xinyan will also appear at the Beijing Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala.

Last night's Spring Festival Gala was also extremely high in AI content. Some netizens couldn't help but joke, "The AI ratio of this year's Spring Festival Gala is even higher than that of my thesis."

ByteDance dominated the Spring Festival Gala: Volcengine was deeply involved in program production as the exclusive AI cloud partner. Multiple Doubao large - scale models such as the Seedance 2.0 video generation model and Shidian Ancient Books were the behind - the - scenes heroes of the Spring Festival Gala programs. Before the Spring Festival Gala started, there was an advertisement for the AI programming tool TRAE. Doubao and Douyin undertook functions for the audience such as online interaction, real - time subtitles, and video live - streaming.

For the smart living scenarios, the Huawei Mate 80 took on the important task of vertical - screen live - streaming of the Spring Festival Gala. Huawei mobile phones, computers, and Hongmeng Smart Mobility products all appeared frequently. The smart home appliances and advertising spaces of Dreame, MOVA, and Shouqu appeared in as many as 9 programs.

The AI health application Afu under Ant Group appeared in the skit "Blood Pressure Monitor". There were eye - catching promotional slogans of Afu on the wall in the program, and even the protagonist's name was "Afu". The 8K AI thumb sports camera of Photon Leap under Dreame appeared in the song program "Manufacturing the Future". The Harbin branch venue displayed the AI song "The Glorious Manufacturing in Harbin".

At the Hefei branch venue, the team led by Academician Pan Jianwei, the deep - space exploration experimental team, Academician Wan Yuanxi, and the nuclear fusion large - scale scientific team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences gathered to showcase the three major scientific research high - grounds of quantum information, deep - space exploration, and fusion energy, presenting national heavy - weight equipment such as the "Artificial Sun" and the "Micius" in an artistic form.

The strong technological attribute also gave this year's Spring Festival Gala a sense of disparity.

Some audiences were amazed at the rapid development of technology, while others complained about "searching for programs in a technology press conference" and "it's like watching a promotional video for AI and robots".

In any case, this national - scale gala has completed a grand technology popularization, pulling the national audience onto the two fast - paced steeds of AI and robots and charging towards the cutting - edge technology trend full of huge economic variables.

▲Partners of the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala (Compiled by Zhidx)

01 The highest content of humanoid robots in history! Skits, martial arts, dancing, and selling grilled sausages are all available

In this Spring Festival Gala, humanoid robots participated from the main venue in Beijing to the branch venues in Yibin and Yiwu. The types of programs they participated in were also diverse: performing skits, doing martial arts, doing drunken boxing, doing group dances, making spicy noodles, and selling grilled sausages... The technological achievements of various humanoid robot companies in motion control, multi - robot collaboration, and cluster control were all intensively displayed on the stage.

1. Songyan Dynamics: A group of humanoid robots act as "grandsons", and a bionic humanoid robot makes an appearance

Humanoid robots are evolving in strange directions. For example, can their necks suddenly stretch 50 centimeters?

In fact, Songyan Dynamics added a lifting neck effect to its new - generation product E1.

In the skit "Grandma's Favorite", Songyan Dynamics brought three models of a total of four humanoid robots: Bumi, which costs less than 10,000 yuan and is only 94 centimeters tall, the sports - type humanoid robot N2 with a height of 1.2 meters, and the general - purpose humanoid robot E1 with a height of 1.36 meters.

Songyan Dynamics intensively demonstrated two aspects of the capabilities of its humanoid robots:

One is in terms of interaction. In a language - based program like a skit, the robots also told cold jokes - "Which one of the twelve Chinese zodiac animals is the most annoying?" "The chicken is annoying (robot)."

The other is in terms of motion control ability. The robots suddenly ran with anthropomorphic arm - swinging, did backflips, and side - flips while others were chatting, and overall they looked quite light and flexible.

In addition to humanoid robots, another important product line of Songyan Dynamics is bionic humanoid robots.

In the second half of the program, Cai Ming introduced a bionic humanoid robot sitting in a wheelchair that looked very much like her. This is a product that Songyan Dynamics independently developed and iterated through three versions in two months for the Spring Festival Gala.

The bionic version of "Cai Ming" can present the liveliness of a human through mouth shapes, expressions, eye movements, neck postures, and gestures. The details of the pores and the texture of the skin are very close to those of a real person. There are 32 motors driving movements inside her bionic face, among which there are 12 just for the mouth.

2. Unitree Technology: Practicing stick skills and drunken boxing, breaking multiple records

It took Unitree one year to evolve from the "cyber old ladies" who wobbled while doing the yangko dance to martial arts masters who mastered all kinds of martial arts and could be regarded as examples for martial arts school recruitment.

In the program "Wu BOT", more than a dozen G1s smoothly did backflips, side - kicks, and vaults, with their movements flowing smoothly. The G1 also had a "human - machine duel" with children, practicing stick skills and using nunchucks, and controlling the rhythm very well, and was also good at drunken boxing.

Unitree introduced that this time its humanoid robots broke the limits of motion performance and set several global firsts:

The world's first continuous fancy table - flipping parkour;

The world's first ejection flip, with the maximum flip height greater than 3 meters;

The world's first single - leg continuous flip, backflip after two - step wall - climbing;

The world's first Airflare big spin for seven and a half turns;

The world's first rapid cluster repositioning (the fastest random repositioning speed can reach 4m/s), and it is equipped with a new self - developed dexterous hand, supporting the rapid replacement and stable grasping of martial arts props.

At the end of the program, Unitree's H2 humanoid robot made a grand finale appearance and even performed sword - dancing on the spot.

At the Yiwu branch venue, the H2 transformed into Sun Wukong from the domestic 3A game "Black Myth: Wukong", wearing heavy armor and weapons and stepping on the B2W robotic dog like a cloud, looking majestic.

The H2 is a product released by Unitree last October, with a height of 180 cm and a weight of 70 kg. At that time, many netizens felt the uncanny valley effect because of its bionic face design. The robot that appeared on the Spring Festival Gala this time has undergone relatively major changes in facial design.

3. Magic Atom: Transformed into a "cyber noodle chef", hundreds of robots dance together

Unexpectedly, one day, humanoid robots can help make the New Year's Eve dinner!

At the Yibin branch venue, Magic Atom's humanoid robots became "cyber noodle - fishing chefs". The Gen1 completed continuous operations such as fishing noodles, lifting noodles, and pouring noodles, and the Z1 acted as a "cyber food - delivery person". This is the first multi - robot collaboration of humanoid robots on the Spring Festival Gala stage.

On the main stage, six Magic Atom humanoid robots MagicBot Z1 and two MagicBot Gen1 performed the program "Manufacturing the Future" on the same stage as artists such as Jackson Yee and Jerry Yan, following the rhythm of the music and completing rapid turns, dynamic connections, and continuous choreographed movements.

The MagicBot Z1 also showed off a 360° Thomas spin and a side - flip at the branch venue.

At the Yibin branch venue, more than a hundred Magic Atom quadruped robots MagicDog wearing panda - like appearances synchronously completed running, formation - making, and dancing movements, achieving millisecond - level synchronization in a high - density scheduling scenario.

4. Galaxy Universal: Demonstrating practical skills such as taking items from the shelf, tidying up the desktop, and folding clothes

The Galaxy Universal Galbot G1, which used to take items from the convenience - store shelf, has learned new skills this time, such as selling grilled sausages by the way.

In the micro - movie "My Most Unforgettable New Year's Eve" starring Shen Teng and Ma Li, the wheeled dual - armed humanoid robot Galbot G1 of Galaxy Universal guest - starred as Shen Teng's "close buddy".

In addition to using its dexterous hands to play with walnuts and conduct a chorus, the Galbot G1 also demonstrated familiar skills such as taking items from the shelf, tidying up a messy desktop, grilling sausages on - site, and folding clothes, aiming to comprehensively showcase practical skills.