Humanoid Robots in a Frenzy in 2026: Who Will Foot the Bill for the Feast?

Author | Huang Yu   Editor | Song He  

When the stage lights of the 2026 Spring Festival Gala on the Year of the Horse finally dimmed, this Gala, jokingly referred to by netizens as the "hardest-core Gala in history", left a futuristic footnote with the collective appearance of four domestic robot companies: Magic Atom, Galaxy Universal, Unitree Technology, and Songyan Power.

On this night, Unitree Technology's G1 and H2 humanoid robots held long sticks in the martial arts program "Wu BOT" and competed on stage with the teenagers from Tagou Wushu School. Their drunken boxing and nunchaku skills were performed smoothly, and the red-robed sword dance showed a heroic spirit. Songyan Power's bionic robot played the role of a "robot grandson" in the sketch "Grandma's Favorite", cuddling up to Cai Ming and acting cute, showing off skills such as neck stretching, making money appear out of thin air, and doing somersaults. Magic Atom's MagicBot series shuttled through the main venue in the program "Intelligent Manufacturing for the Future", performing on stage with artists such as Jordan Chan, Jerry Yan, Luo Jiahao, and Jackson Yee. Its robot dogs and humanoid robots also appeared at the Yibin branch venue in the program "Standing at the Forefront", interacting with pandas during the performance and adding a lot of technological fun. As the designated embodied large model robot for this year's Spring Festival Gala, Galaxy Universal's Galbot G1 amazed the audience with a tongue twister performance in the New Year's Eve micro - movie "My Most Unforgettable New Year's Eve".

From Unitree Technology's solo "breakout" in 2025 with the program "Yang BOT" to the four manufacturers showing their respective strengths in different programs in 2026, this "all - star qualifying race" in front of hundreds of millions of people is a microcosm of the rapid development of the Chinese humanoid robot industry in the past year.

When robots moved from the laboratory demonstration stage to the national - level stage of the Spring Festival Gala, this top - level high - stakes bet in the technology circle also reached a crucial node in the transition from technological narrative to commercial reality.

In this feast known as the "Billion - Yuan Club", each company on stage tried to establish its position in front of hundreds of millions of viewers, aiming to convert national - level popularity into a winning rate in the commercial landscape. However, behind the bright spotlight, there is a subtle and dangerous contrast between the high cost of the Spring Festival Gala "ticket" and the yet - to - explode real delivery volume.

This round of "rapid development" of humanoid robots is not only a technology - dimension display show but also a strategic shift from the laboratory to the "budget sheet". What the industry is really competing for is no longer who has more flexible joints or who can complete more difficult flips, but who can be included in the annual capital expenditure list of major customers.

As Zhu Xiaohu, the managing partner of Jinshajiang Venture Capital, once questioned in a rather straightforward way: "Who would spend more than a hundred thousand yuan to buy a robot to do these jobs?"

This question has become a must - answer question for the entire industry in the early spring of 2026.

1 Choice of Exposure

In the past year, the humanoid robot industry has experienced an accelerated run from laboratory demonstrations to real - world scenario applications and mass delivery. For the Spring Festival Gala, each company's industry position and its own development orientation also determine its different expectations.

The official statements of the four companies on stage after the Spring Festival Gala are precisely in line with their respective track positions.

As a three - time participant in the Spring Festival Gala, Unitree Technology issued an official tweet late on February 16, stating that this time it presented the world's first fully autonomous humanoid robot cluster martial arts performance with the G1 and H2 humanoid robots, showing "cyber real kung fu" in the Year of the Horse, breaking through the limits of motion performance and setting multiple global firsts, including the world's first continuous fancy table - flipping parkour, a catapult flip height of over 3 meters, single - foot continuous flips + two - step wall - kicking backflips, a seven - and - a - half - week Airflare spin, and the fastest cluster rapid positioning at 4m/s. It also equipped with a new self - developed dexterous hand, enabling rapid replacement and stable grasping of martial arts props.

It also revealed that this performance used a high - concurrency cluster control system and a self - developed AI fusion positioning algorithm, combined with 3D lidar for precise positioning, and solved the problem of cumulative motion errors. Unitree Technology also clearly stated that its humanoid robot shipments exceeded 5,500 units in 2025, which is higher than the previous forecasts of market research institutions.

Galaxy Universal and Unitree Technology, as the first - tier companies with valuations exceeding tens of billions, are more focused on enhancing their influence in the capital market and accumulating momentum for the upcoming listing wave.

Galaxy Universal said on February 17 that its robot "Xiaogai" completed a tongue twister performance at the Spring Festival Gala, demonstrating the interaction ability of the embodied large model.

According to its official interpretation, the robot also has the technical strength for fine - grained operations such as playing with walnuts, picking up glass fragments, folding clothes, and skewering sausages, all achieving end - to - end autonomous perception, autonomous decision - making, and autonomous execution, different from the pre - programmed performances of traditional robots.

Galaxy Universal also detailed the technical difficulties of playing with walnuts - the irregular surface of walnuts and the real - time change of stress points. The robot needs to practice repeatedly in the virtual world first and then correct and accumulate "physical feel" in reality to achieve precise operation.

The relevant person in charge of Galaxy Universal previously revealed that in this year's Spring Festival Gala, the company's robots emphasized the aspect of "being able to work", and the greater significance behind it is that being able to work means opportunities for commercialization.

The third - tier companies such as Songyan Power and Magic Atom, with valuations of around 3 billion yuan, are more like hoping to use the Spring Festival Gala to "push themselves closer to the front line", trying to establish their market coordinates before the industry reshuffle.

Songyan Power said in an official WeChat tweet late on February 16 that this time it brought its specially customized bionic humanoid robot on stage and perfectly cooperated with Cai Ming to complete the sketch performance. To adapt to the complex stage scheduling, the company completed a rapid technical iteration of the entire product within more than a month. The bionic robot on stage achieved facial expressions and smooth movements almost like a real person.

Songyan Power emphasized that the bionic robot is not a "laboratory product". In 2025, its bionic face products were already implemented in commercial guidance and other scenarios. The company is also one of the few in the industry that can mass - produce bionic humanoid robots. This Spring Festival Gala performance is a breakthrough attempt to promote domestic humanoid robots into families and release consumer - level demand.

Magic Atom said in its official statement that it is the only robot company on this year's Spring Festival Gala stage that combines "show performance" and "being able to work", and completed a high - density technology debut: eight humanoid robots in the main venue assisted in the performance of "Intelligent Manufacturing for the Future". At the Yibin branch venue in the program "Standing at the Forefront", its robot dog MagicDog and humanoid robots MagicBot Z1 and Gen1 also made a surprise appearance, adding a lot of technological fun. It said that the simultaneous appearance in multiple scenarios and with multiple models is a comprehensive test of product consistency, control architecture, and engineering reliability, and a concrete manifestation of group intelligence.

The stage effect of this year's Spring Festival Gala gave the most direct market feedback.

According to the data released by JD.com on the 17th, within two hours after the start of the Spring Festival Gala on the Year of the Horse (from 20:00 to 22:00 on February 16), the search volume for robots on the platform increased by more than 300% compared with the previous period, the customer service inquiry volume increased by 460%, and the order volume increased by 150%. The new orders covered more than 100 cities across the country. The "Spring Festival Gala - style" robots launched by JD.com on New Year's Eve were quickly snapped up within a few minutes. Products of brands such as Magic Atom, Unitree Technology, and Songyan Power were all sold out, and two GALBOT Universal Robot G1s worth nearly 630,000 yuan were also snapped up.

Although the Spring Festival Gala demonstrated the capabilities of these robots and pushed robots onto the hot search again, the reality is that the development of humanoid robots is still in the early stage. In the past, humanoid robots frequently appeared at various exhibitions, but there seem to be few actual real - life application scenarios.

For small and medium - sized startups, finding a balance between high marketing expenses and investment in core technology R & D is a life - or - death decision. In the view of many company CEOs, rather than performing remotely - controlled dances on the TV screen, it is better to allocate the money to R & D personnel and do something practical in the factory.

An insider from a Shenzhen robot company told Wall Street News that during the Spring Festival Gala preparation stage, relevant personnel also had discussions with the company, but the company thought the cost was too high and did not choose to participate. "The price of participating in the Spring Festival Gala has been changing. At that time, when talking to four or five robot companies in Shenzhen, the plan was for us to form a team to perform a program at the Spring Festival Gala and share a cost of 100 million yuan together. On average, each company would have to bear more than 20 million yuan."

In the view of this insider, in addition to the high promotion cost, he believes that it is difficult to replicate the effect achieved by Unitree last year at this year's Spring Festival Gala. Because in 2025, the public already had a certain understanding of humanoid robots. Unless a company can come up with a really amazing feat to surprise the audience, it doesn't make much sense to participate in the Spring Festival Gala.

ZhiYuan Robotics, which attracted much attention last year, also withdrew from the competition for the Spring Festival Gala before the Spring Festival. The relevant person in charge of ZhiYuan Robotics told Wall Street News that the core reason for giving up the Spring Festival Gala is that the company's budget will be prioritized for the R & D of embodied intelligence technology and product iteration, and it will not consider large - scale stage exposure investment for the time being.

Another person close to a startup robot company said: "At present, humanoid robot companies value most in publicity is to be seen by investors and to get direct large - customer orders. After the past year, the benefits brought by mass publicity have significantly weakened."

2 Orders and Financing

In 2025, humanoid robots have rapidly refreshed the public's perception through a series of unique events such as running marathons, boxing, and playing football. At the same time, the commercialization of humanoid robots has also been accelerating.

In July last year, ZhiYuan Robotics and Unitree Technology won the bid for the procurement project of humanoid biped robot OEM services of China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd. (wholly - owned by China Mobile), with a total budget of more than 120 million yuan.

Guotai Haitong pointed out that the implementation of this procurement tender is an important milestone in the commercialization process of the domestic humanoid robot industry. Currently, the humanoid robot industry is at a critical stage of "from 0 to 1".

There have also been many benchmark - like orders.

Ubtech, known as the "first humanoid robot stock", refreshed the world's largest humanoid robot order with a 250 - million - yuan order in September 2025. In October, it won the bid for the "Procurement and Installation of Equipment for the Guangxi Embodied Intelligence Data Collection and Testing Center" project, with an order amount of 126 million yuan.

The popularity of the humanoid robot industry is not only reflected in the stage and multiple large - value orders but also in the financing and listing rhythm of enterprises.

According to IT Juzi data, as of December 21, 2025, more than 600 investors "invested real money" in embodied intelligence. There were more than 304 financing events throughout the year, and the total financing amount reached 37.9 billion yuan, which were 2.95 times and 4.05 times that of 2024 respectively, and 7.24 times and 4.37 times that of 2023 respectively.

At the same time, humanoid robot companies have also witnessed a listing boom. Unitree Technology completed IPO counseling in November 2025 and is sprinting to become the "first humanoid robot stock" on the A - share market. ZhiYuan Robotics obtained a listing platform by acquiring Shangwei New Materials and completed management changes. Leading players such as Leju Robotics and Yun Shenchu are also accelerating their listing processes.

3 Difficulty in Mass Production

For a long time, humanoid robots have been regarded as the ultimate carrier of general artificial intelligence (AGI) in the physical world, but the high R & D cost and vague commercial boundaries have always been accompanying. This situation has undergone a fundamental reversal in the past year.

The crazy influx of capital and the frequent introduction of industrial policies have pushed this industry, which was originally in the deep water area, into the spotlight. However, judging from the actual production capacity in 2025, although the large - scale mass production of humanoid robots has clearly started to increase, it is still in its infancy.

The full - year data for 2025 released by Omdia shows that the global humanoid robot shipments were about 13,000 units, more than five times that of 2024.

However, looking at the shipments of specific companies, only three companies have shipments exceeding 1,000 units, and all of them are from China, namely ZhiYuan Robotics, Unitree Technology, and Ubtech, with corresponding shipments of 5,168 units, 4,200 units, and 1,000 units respectively.

At the current stage, shipments are very important to each company, and the first - place position in the market is particularly crucial. Therefore, for Unitree, which has received the most attention, it also questioned the list where it did not get the first place.

On January 22, Unitree Technology clarified that its actual humanoid robot shipments in 2025 exceeded 5,500 units, and the mass - production offline of the main body exceeded 6,500 units in 2025.

The company also specifically emphasized that these data are the number of pure humanoid robots and do not include other robot products such as double - arm wheeled robots. And in its statement at the Spring Festival Gala, Unitree Technology emphasized this data, which is higher than the previous market forecasts, again.

This positive "self - justification" reflects that humanoid robot companies in 2026 are facing more stringent tests.

An investment person in the robot industry told Wall Street News: "The robot industry was very lively last year, but it was more of a year for popularizing public awareness. The outside world also had many unrealistic expectations for this industry. This year, the market has become more objective and calm, and it is more of a test of the company's delivery ability and the ability to stably put products into use."

This view reflects a certain kind of reflection in the market under the upsurge: without real market orders to support, no matter how gorgeous the Spring Festival Gala performance is, it can only be an expensive "firework".

TrendForce Jibang Consulting pointed out that as manufacturers move towards mass - production layout, finding the application value of humanoid robots has become the focus at this stage. The development focus of manufacturers has shifted from simple R & D of software and hardware to the implementation of actual application scenarios.

4 Possible Diverse Paths

For humanoid robots to truly move from the laboratory to large - scale commercial implementation in society, the question of "who will pay the bill" must be answered first.

According to the maturity of scenarios and the logic of the customer's ledger, the current commercialization paths of humanoid robot companies can be roughly divided into four, and the technology demonstrations and official statements of the four companies at this year's Spring Festival Gala also outline the exploration directions of the industry's diversified commercialization.

First is the "entering the factory" logic in the manufacturing industry, which is currently the path with the highest certainty and the fastest implementation.

In factories with highly controllable environments such as automobile manufacturing, 3C electronics, and warehousing and logistics, humanoid robots are gradually changing from "visiting projects" to "production labor". The core logic is to solve the