Robots were the most talked-about characters in China\u2019s biggest TV gala of the year \u2014 and the businesses behind\u00a0them are now in the spotlight. <\/p>\n
State television ushered in the lunar new year with comedy sketches, choreography and martial arts performed by humanoid robots. <\/p>\n
The companies whose products feature in the annual television special \u2014 often a showcase for the latest technology \u2014 benefit from exposure and the broader perception that they have the backing of Beijing. Within hours of the broadcast, orders of robot-related products on ecommerce platform JD.com had more than doubled, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Spring Festival Gala is an amplifier,\u201d Jiang Zheyuan, the 28-year-old founder of Beijing-based Noetix, which exhibited its robots during the gala, told local media. \u201cIf you do well you\u2019ll become famous overnight. If you do poorly, you\u2019ll just humiliate yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Companies are eager to show possible commercial applications<\/a> for humanoid tech, arguing that as the population ages, robots could be an answer to labour shortages in factories and the service sector.<\/p>\n Analysts caution this may be some way off. Last year, less than 20 per cent of humanoid robot shipments were used in commercial\u00a0applications such as manufacturing or services, said Morningstar analyst Cheng Wang. Most were used in entertainment, performance, education and research.<\/p>\n Unitree\u2019s backflips and \u2018drunken\u2019 kung fu<\/p>\n At last year\u2019s lunar new year gala, Hangzhou-based producer Unitree\u2019s H1 robot featured in a banner-waving dance display, rocketing the company to national prominence. The company was the second-largest humanoid robot producer by deliveries last year, according to Omdia.<\/p>\n Just one year later, the technology has already hugely advanced. A team of silver, G1 humanoids performed an array of acrobatics, including backflips and \u2014 strikingly \u2014 a bout of \u201cdrunken\u201d kung fu, a fluid fighting style made famous by the monks of the Shaolin Temple.<\/p>\n While analysts stress that robots in the performance, like all of those at the gala, were likely to have been preprogrammed, they agree that the fluidity of the G1\u2019s movement, its co-ordination with numerous other bots and human performers and its balance were impressive. <\/p>\n \u201cUnitree\u2019s G1 may be the best hardware platform [and] perhaps the robot model with the best dynamic capability in the world,\u201d said Marco Wang, an expert at Interact Analysis, noting that the robot had become the industry standard for researchers of bipedal movement. <\/p>\n