TL;DR: While Americans were watching the Super Bowl, China’s Spring Festival Gala pulled in a staggering 23 billion views—and the real stars weren’t pop singers, but kung fu fighting robots. The Unitree G1 stole the show with moves so fluid people thought it was CGI, sparking a massive backlog of orders that has pushed delivery dates into March.
Forget the halftime show—the real spectacle this month was in China. The Spring Festival Gala, traditionally the world’s most-watched TV event, featured a troupe of humanoid robots that didn’t just shuffle around; they performed synchronized kung fu. Leading the charge was the Unitree G1, a $12,000+ humanoid that moved with such uncanny agility that social media immediately cried \”fake.\” It wasn’t.
The performance has triggered a rush of interest. According to reports, Unitree is now facing a significant backlog, with delivery estimates slipping weeks into the future. It’s a clear signal that while the West focuses on LLMs and chatbots, China is rapidly accelerating the deployment of embodied AI. The G1 isn’t just a prototype; it’s a product people are actually buying, albeit at a luxury price point.
Meanwhile, smaller, more affordable bots like the Noetix Bumi also made appearances, suggesting a tiered market is already forming. With Unitree aiming to ship 20,000 units this year—quadruple their 2025 output—the pressure is squarely on Tesla and Figure to show they can match this scale and public visibility.