Robots "gathered in groups" to appear on the Spring Festival Gala, and the total sponsorship amount reached 500 million yuan.

The Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Horse has attracted a number of embodied intelligence companies to compete, but no company has obtained the exclusive sponsorship rights. Eventually, several companies will appear on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala together.

“To obtain exclusive rights, the price is expected to be around 500 million yuan, which is beyond the affordability of any embodied intelligence company,” said a person close to the bidding. “Eventually, about five embodied intelligence companies will appear on the Spring Festival Gala together, with each contributing about 100 million yuan.”

It is understood that companies such as Unitree, Zhipu, Galaxy Universal, Songyan Power, and Deep Robotics have all shown strong interest in the Spring Festival Gala stage.

For embodied intelligence companies that are still in the startup stage and have not developed a mature business model, a single marketing expense of 100 million yuan is a rather aggressive investment.

“Some companies' annual marketing expenses are less than 100 million yuan,” said a practitioner in the field of embodied intelligence. “A cooperation worth 100 million yuan, and it's not even exclusive. It's crazy.”

Considering the large amount of the cooperation, some companies may pay this fee in non - cash ways.

On October 26, Songyan Power announced the completion of its Pre - B round of financing, in which the CCTV Media Convergence Fund was among the investors. On December 9, Deep Robotics Technology announced the completion of its Series C financing, and the CCTV Media Convergence Fund also participated. On December 19, the CCTV Media Convergence Fund also participated in Galaxy Universal's new round of financing.

The CCTV Media Convergence Fund was established in Shanghai in 2021, jointly initiated by China International Television Corporation under China Media Group, as well as 26 other enterprises such as China Telecom and China Cultural Industry Investment Fund.

Behind the competition of various embodied intelligence companies for the Spring Festival Gala also means that this industry has entered a new stage of development.

Before 2025, robots mainly appeared in laboratories, the education sector, and demonstration videos. The market penetration rate was low, and there was no intense head - to - head competition.

We can't expect this equilibrium to remain in 2026.

Since the third quarter of 2025, embodied intelligence companies have successively received large orders, indicating that market demand is becoming strong. Jiang Qingsong, the senior vice - president of Zhipu, also revealed in a public speech that the company's focus in 2026 is to “slowly move from B2B to B2C”. Another piece of news says that Tesla's Optimus V3.0 will be mass - produced by the end of 2026.

This means that embodied intelligence companies need to quickly cross the technology verification stage and move towards mass production and market verification. This brings three aspects of challenges: engineering capabilities, brand capabilities, and financing capabilities.

Appearing on the Spring Festival Gala in an appropriate way is a shortcut to transform “hard technology” into a “national brand” in a short time. At the same time, it can also attract more investors' attention and make future listings or financing smoother.

Besides embodied intelligence, Volcengine will become the exclusive AI cloud partner of the 2026 Spring Festival Gala of China Media Group, but the list of other sponsors has not been officially announced.

This article is from the WeChat official account “Sajia Junze”, written by Sajia Junze, and is published by 36Kr with authorization.