Beijing: China's Spring Festival Gala this year marked a significant technological advancement as the country celebrated the Lunar New Year with an array of firsts. The annual gala, which is the centerpiece of New Year's Eve festivities, is a highly anticipated event watched by millions of viewers nationwide.
According to Anadolu Agency, this year's gala featured advanced robotics performances that included humanoid robots executing feats such as continuous freestyle table-vaulting parkour, aerial flips, continuous single-leg flips, a two-step wall-assisted backflip, and a 7.5-rotation Airflare grand spin. This sophisticated display was a notable departure from the previous year's simpler robotic performances, which involved basic handkerchief twirling and movements.
The segment, broadcast on state television channel CGTN, quickly gained popularity online, amassing nearly half a million views on YouTube. The gala saw collaboration from four technology firms-Unitree, Magiclab, Galbot, and Noetix-in partnerships valued at around 100 million yuan ($14 million), reports the South China Morning Post.
The event showcased Noetix's Bumi models in a comedic sketch, while Unitree's robots performed martial arts and acrobatics with child artists. Magiclab's humanoids also participated in a musical segment. These performances underscored China's rapid advancements in humanoid robotics, a field that is currently exploring entertainment applications with potential future industrial uses.
Moreover, the gala highlighted the growing competition among Chinese technology companies. ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, leveraged the event to demonstrate its artificial intelligence advancements, introducing the Seedance 2.0 video-generation model and Doubao-Seed 2.0 systems. The company announced plans to distribute over 100,000 products, including drones, electric vehicles, robots, and 3D printers, and award digital red envelopes worth up to 8,888 yuan ($1,286) through lucky draws.
This initiative was part of a competitive landscape, as Tencent's Yuanbao and Alibaba's Qwen AI apps offered substantial giveaways totaling 1 billion yuan and 3 billion yuan, respectively, in cash and vouchers ahead of the holiday. Excluded from the CCTV-ByteDance collaboration, Alibaba instead sponsored local broadcaster-organized galas in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Henan.
Adding to the celebrations, three Chinese astronauts participated in New Year activities from space. The Shenzhou-21 crew adorned the space station with red lanterns, enjoyed dumplings, and shared a homemade cake prepared with the station's space oven.
Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year, celebrates the Year of the Horse and officially begins on February 17.