China’s humanoid robots take centre stage in Chinese New Year Celebration

China’s most-watched TV show, the annual CCTV Spring Festival gala, on Monday showcased the country’s cutting-edge industrial policy and Beijing’s push to dominate humanoid robots and the future of manufacturing.
Four rising humanoid robot startups – Unitree Robotics, Galbot, ⁠Noetix and MagicLab – demonstrated their products at the gala, a televised event and touchstone for China comparable to the Super Bowl for the United States.
The programme’s first three sketches prominently featured humanoid robots, including ‌a lengthy martial arts demonstration where over a dozen Unitree humanoids performed sophisticated fight sequences waving swords, poles and nunchucks in close proximity to human children performers.
The fight sequences included a technically ambitious one that imitated the wobbly moves and ​backward falls of China’s “drunken boxing” martial arts style, showing innovations in multi-robot coordination and fault recovery – where a robot can get up after falling down.