Courtesy of Unitree

Chinese tech firm Unitree humanoid robots made a spectacular return to the Spring Festival Gala on Monday, captivating audiences this year with a dynamic routine featuring parkour, Drunken Fist, and nunchaku—a significant upgrade from their stunning Yangko dance performance at the 2025 event.

In the just-concluded show, Unitree's H1 robots performed table-vaulting parkour, launched 3-meter-aerial flip, single-leg flips and Airflare grand spin of seven-and-a-half rotations and other high-difficulty movements, according to a statement sent to the Global Times on Monday. 

In terms of the cluster coordination, the performance achieved the world's first high-speed cluster repositioning with maximum arbitrary repositioning speed reaching 4 meters per second. In addition, the robots are also equipped with newly self-developed dexterous hands, supporting rapid switching and stable gripping of martial arts props, providing reliable support for high-difficulty martial arts performances including staff and nunchaku routine performance, according to the company.

At the end of the performance, the 1.8-meter-tall H2 humanoid robot performed a sword routine. Meanwhile, at the sub-venue of 2026 Spring Festival Gala in Yiwu, East China's Zhejiang Province, H2 appeared clad in the Monkey King's heavy armor, wielding a golden cudgel, and standing atop a "somersault cloud" operated by quadruped robot dogs.

Wang said that this year, robots completed formation changes and martial arts movements while running at high speed, marking the global debut of such high-dynamic, highly coordinated cluster-control technology, CCTV News reported on Monday. 

"The move is highly practical and lays the groundwork for future robot deployment in cluster operations or single-unit scheduling across other scenarios," he said.

The performance has impressed many viewers. On Chinese X-liked social media Sina Weibo, some netizens said "The progress [of humanoid robot] has been incredible—last year it could only perform handkerchief twirling," and others said this year's Spring Festival Gala is like a latest products launch event. 

X user "CyberRobo" posted the performance video of Unitree robots, saying that the performance was "absolutely insane." Another user named "YM Shen" commented under the video that "Tool usage and force feedback and human interaction, self-recovery after jump. Amazing!"

Monday's performance came just one year after a Yangge folk dance performed by Unitree robots during the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Snake in January 2025 stunned many viewers as the performance, directed by renowned Chinese director Zhang Yimou, using an innovative approach, blended cultural heritage with cutting-edge technology.

Four startups—Unitree Robotics, Galbot, Noetix, and MagicLab—are showcasing their humanoid robots in the 2026 Spring Festival Gala, covering multiple performance forms including dancing, short stage play and mini film. 

Global Times