At this year's Spring Festival Gala, will the robots continue to do the yangge dance, or will they cook?

"The Spring Festival Gala has contacted many robot companies," an industry insider told China News Service.

Recently, four robot companies, MagicLab, Galaxy Universal, Unitree Technology, and Songyan Power, have successively announced their cooperation with the 2026 Spring Festival Gala of China Media Group, which has attracted attention.

After Unitree Technology's robots performed the yangko dance on the stage, what will be different when multiple robot companies' products appear on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Horse?

Image source: Company's official WeChat account

"The competition started last November."

According to relevant sources, the competition for robots to appear on the Spring Festival Gala started in November 2025.

"Unitree's success after appearing on the Spring Festival Gala is the root cause for everyone to scramble for a spot," several relevant people told China News Service. They said that robots' exposure on the Spring Festival Gala is helpful for enterprises' brand building and subsequent financing.

Public information shows that after Unitree Technology's performance at the Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Snake in 2025, its development pace significantly accelerated.

According to Tianyancha's official website, on June 19, 2025, Unitree Technology completed its Series C financing. The investors included China Mobile, Tencent Investment, Jinqiu Fund, Alibaba, Ant Group, Geely Capital, etc. The financing amount was hundreds of millions of yuan, and the company's valuation reached 12 billion yuan.

According to media reports, in mid - 2025, Wang Xingxing, the founder of Unitree Technology, revealed at a public forum that the company's orders for industrial robots in 2025 increased by 220% year - on - year, and the contract value exceeded 1.2 billion yuan.

On November 15, 2025, the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission showed that Unitree Technology completed its IPO counseling. In terms of commercialization, Unitree Technology's first national store opened at Beijing JD Mall on December 31, 2025.

Wind data shows that in 2025, Unitree Technology won 25 bids, a 25% increase compared with the previous year. It bid a total of 32 times, a 52.4% year - on - year increase. Since 2025, the procurement units it won bids from include power grids, telecommunications companies, universities, art academies, etc. The bid products are mainly humanoid robot systems, multi - legged intelligent inspection robots, etc.

Source of Unitree Technology's bidding statistics: Wind

On January 22, 2026, Unitree officially announced that the actual shipment volume of its humanoid robots in 2025 exceeded 5,500 units, and the mass - production offline volume of the main bodies exceeded 6,500 units.

Liu Xiangquan, the director of the Department of Robot Engineering in the School of Mechatronic Engineering at Beijing Information Science and Technology University, told China News Service that through appearing on the Spring Festival Gala, Unitree Technology accelerated its financing and increased its valuation. "This is equivalent to a free advertisement." Now that multiple companies are joining the Spring Festival Gala stage, after increasing their exposure, it is easier to attract capital attention, and financing will be relatively more convenient.

From the perspective of product implementation, within one year after the Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Snake, robot companies have successively started to deliver orders.

In July 2025, Songyan Power mass - produced and delivered 105 humanoid robots; in December, Zhipu Robotics officially announced that its 5,000th general embodied robot was officially offline, and Ubtech announced that its 1,000th Walker S2 was officially offline.

Will robots show cooking skills this year?

Compared with last year's solo performance, multiple companies' robots will appear on the Spring Festival Gala stage this year, and people are curious about what they will perform.

On January 30, Songyan Power, which has officially announced its participation, told China News Service that the program content is still in the confidentiality stage and it is inconvenient to disclose.

As of the time of publication, robot companies such as DeepRobotics and Zhongqing have not responded to China News Service about whether they will appear on the Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Horse. According to media reports, Zhipu Robotics has said that it will not participate in the 2026 Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Horse.

Will robots show new skills at the Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Horse?

In fact, it is not impossible for robots to "cook" or "fold clothes" at the Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Horse.

Liu Xiangquan believes that in the past year, embodied intelligence has been looking for application scenarios, and the industry is accelerating the pace of robots entering families. He predicts that on the Spring Festival Gala stage in the Year of the Horse, robot performances may not be limited to singing and dancing, and there may be some displays of industrial or service scenarios, such as household chores.

Combined with the industry's development trends in the past year, it can be found that the above - mentioned "performances" already have a technological foundation.

As early as the 2025 World Robot Conference, China News Service saw that Stardust Intelligence's robots could smoothly complete actions such as preparing breakfast. At the 2025 China International Fair for Trade in Services, Chinese robots demonstrated various skills such as greeting guests, performing remote surgeries, and logistics distribution. In addition, there are more and more robots for folding clothes, packing, and fetching items at various large - scale exhibitions.

Looking at the background of MagicLab, which was the first to announce its participation in the Spring Festival Gala, the company was established in January 2024 and has self - developed full - stack software and hardware technologies. Its core hardware covers key components such as full - joint modules, dexterous hands, and reducer drivers. Its core products include full - size general humanoid robots and quadruped robots, all of which have achieved mass production and delivery.

According to the official announcements of MagicLab, its robot baristas have been on duty in cultural and tourism and trendy play festival scenarios. In December 2025, MagicLab's robots carried out cross - border cooperation with DQ in multiple DQ ice cream stores in Shanghai.

Galaxy Universal, a "dark horse" with an enterprise value of 20 billion yuan and ranking first in valuation, also provides general robot products, which have been applied in commercial, industrial, medical, and other scenarios.

Dancing may not be enough anymore

Notably, while the "robots" are successively announcing their participation, there are also voices in the industry saying, "We don't want robots that can only dance."

According to a research report released by the International Data Corporation (IDC) in January this year, China's embodied intelligent robots are moving from the demonstration and pilot stage to the value verification stage centered on efficiency improvement, cost optimization, and process improvement. The market's focus has shifted to the stability, replicability, and ROI (return on investment) of robots in real - world business. IDC predicts that by 2026, about 60% of medium - and large - scale embodied intelligent robot application projects will use two or more robot forms for collaborative operations.

"It's not enough for robots to just dance. They need to have core technologies and scenario implementation. Capital is tilting towards robots that can be truly put into use," Liu Xiangquan said.

In Liu Xiangquan's view, if general - purpose robots appear on the Spring Festival Gala stage, it will be a signal worthy of attention. "General - purpose means being able to perform multiple tasks and having generalization ability, rather than just being able to do one of 'playing football', 'running', 'cooking', or 'washing dishes'." However, he also pointed out that it is still uncertain whether general - purpose robots will appear on the Spring Festival Gala.

Zhou Meijie, the deputy dean of the Shanghai Robotics Industry Technology Research Institute, told China News Service that the super - traffic platform of the Spring Festival Gala will, on the one hand, accelerate the popularization and implementation of humanoid robot applications, promote the evolution of robots from dancing to practical use, and drive the industry's technology from single - machine remote control to cluster technology collaborative development; on the other hand, it will also enhance enterprises' visibility and increase their orders.

"Each robot has nearly 30 joints, and each joint corresponds to a motor, which involves motor manufacturers," Liu Xiangquan said. The effect brought by robots' reappearance on the Spring Festival Gala stage may not be limited to one enterprise this year but will radiate to the upstream and downstream industrial chains, promoting the improvement of the entire industry.

Currently, Unitree is in the critical stage before its IPO; MagicLab has released news that it is advancing its listing process on the fastest schedule; Galaxy Universal completed its share reform and Series B+ financing of over $300 million at the end of last year; Songyan Power has completed its Pre - B+ financing, and the company recently responded to China News Service that it has no IPO plan for the time being.

This article is from the WeChat official account "China News Service" (ID: jwview). Author: Xie Jingwen. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.