This year's CMG Spring Festival Gala is truly a deep integration of technology and art. It not only makes the performance "human and robots perform together" the most stunning moment, but also represents a new leap of China's AI and robot industries—from technology showcase to deep integration with content.
Robots' Qualitative Change: From "Mechanical Execution" to "Embodied Intelligence"
"Martial BOT" performance
[Photo via CCTV.com]
In the martial dance "Martial BOT", humanoid robots from Unitree performed alongside more than 80 young martial arts students, representing the first real-time human-robot martial competition globally. In this performance, 26 robots operated independently without any external positioning system. They can precisely track the movement of the soft staffs held by the performers, and then showcase Shaolin Staff techniques easily, so fast that it's hard to tell with the naked eye. During the drunken boxing part, robots can flexibly perform actions such as kip-up and aerial side flips, of which the somersaults alone have undergone over 300 iterations.
"Martial BOT" performance
[Photo via CCTV.com]
Different from the past uniform dance movements, the 2026 gala performances have realized a qualitative change from the purely technical showcases to deep integration of contents. In the sketch Grandma's Favorite, a bio-robot replicates actress Cai Ming in a 1:1 scale, precisely presents micro-expressions such as raising eyebrows and pursing lips, even making the on-site actor mistake it for a real person many times. From the romantic imagination of making robot antennas wrapping chopsticks in silver foil 30 years ago, to today's realistic bio-robots, the change of robots in the Spring Festival Gala is also a microcosm of China's technological development.
LLM First Showcase: Seedance 2.0's Spring Festival Gala-level Examination
Ode to the Flower Deities
[Photo via CCTV.com]
Ode to the Flower Deities
[Photo via CCTV.com]
In this year's CMG Spring Festival Gala, the multi-modal AI video generation model Seedance 2.0 made its first large-scale debut and the world's first real-time interaction of a large model with a user base of over 100 million. In the show Ode to the Flower Deities, the model has customized visual scenes "one performer, one scene; one flower, one visual motif" for 12 performers. It uses AI-generated images, combining with extensions of the physical stage, to build a new mode of stage storytelling. In the performance Song of Riding the Wind, a national treasure–level ink painting Six Galloping Horses made its debut dynamically. The model precisely retains the brushstrokes and ink charm of the original work, enabling the steed to perform high-difficulty movements such as running and leaping. At the same time, it adheres to the laws of physics, demonstrating a strong understanding of motion physics.
Song of Riding the Wind
[Photo via CCTV.com]
Industrial Leaps Behind Technology
From human-robot co-performance to the first show of AI's large model, this year's CMG Spring Festival Gala is not merely an audiovisual feast, but also a ultimate showcase for China's high-end manufacturing and AI technology. The director said that the Spring Festival Gala can be a starting point for the "first year of science and technology innovation" or the "first year of digital intelligence".
The deep meaning of this technology show is to promote humanoid robots moving into real-world applications: from performing scenarios to industrial, elderly-care, and household application. After the Spring Festival Gala, these robot superstars swiftly stepped into people's lives—at the technological Spring Festival fair held in Haidian District, they have transformed into sellers, poets, and musicians to showcase delicate operations. Chinese robots now are emerging as global leaders, reshaping the industry landscape.
Compiled by Science and Technology Daily, People's Daily Online, CCTV-3, etc.
