Goldman Sachs evaluates "Spring Festival Gala robots": Significant progress in hardware, driving wider adoption, key for the future is underlying AI
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Goldman Sachs stated that the humanoid robot performance at the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala marks significant progress in China’s robot hardware engineering, but the true AI capabilities remain to be tested.
According to ZF Trading Desk, Goldman Sachs' latest research report released on February 21 notes that the Year of the Horse Spring Festival Gala became an important showcase platform for China's humanoid robot technology. Performances by robots from private companies such as Unitree, Noetrix, Magic Lab, and Galbot demonstrated major advances in hardware and whole-body control. However, it is difficult to fully assess their underlying AI capabilities in such highly choreographed performances.
Goldman Sachs maintains its forecast for global humanoid robot shipments to reach 51,000 units in 2026 and 76,000 units in 2027, a several-fold increase from 15,000–20,000 units in 2025. In the short term, related supply chain stocks may benefit, but investors should be cautious of first-quarter earnings pressures and risks from rising raw material costs. In the long term, the pace of development in general AI capabilities will determine the industry’s growth potential, and the "world model" technology path deserves special attention.
Spring Festival Gala Stage: A Concentrated Display of Hardware Capabilities
Goldman Sachs believes that the Year of the Horse Spring Festival Gala is a concentrated display of China’s robot capabilities.
Unitree’s robots demonstrated multi-machine coordination and synchronous movements, possessing smooth motion abilities and dynamic balance, as well as failure recovery abilities similar to human agility in multiple scenarios. Robots from Magic Lab and Galbot displayed impressive dexterity and were able to precisely execute complex operations. Noetrix emphasized its bionic robots’ seamless collaboration with humans and expressive movements.
Analyst Jacqueline Du pointed out, the coordination and stability shown by these robots in highly challenging choreographed routines prove rapid advances in actuator technology, sensor integration, and advanced control algorithms.
However, Spring Festival Gala performances are usually pre-programmed and meticulously rehearsed, designed to showcase robots’ maximum potential under controlled conditions, often relying on predefined trajectories and reactive behaviors, rather than real-time autonomous decision-making in unpredictable environments. Thus, although physical execution is flawless, their cognitive intelligence, adaptability, and true ability to independently learn and operate in unstructured environments remain unclear.
Spring Festival Gala Effect Drives Social Awareness and Application Expansion
Despite doubts about AI capabilities, Goldman Sachs believes the Spring Festival Gala’s huge viewership provides a valuable opportunity to boost social awareness and broaden the public’s understanding of humanoid robots. For many, this may be their first close encounter with such advanced machines, helping to demystify the technology and possibly alleviate anxiety around robots.
Goldman Sachs stated, by showcasing humanoid robots in an entertaining and engaging context, the Spring Festival Gala helps cultivate a more positive perception and acceptance of these technologies. This increased visibility is crucial for expanding potential applications beyond traditional industrial environments. As the public becomes more familiar with and accepts humanoid robots, it will open doors for integration into the service industry, entertainment, education, and even personal assistance fields.
Goldman Sachs predicts, global shipments of humanoid robots will reach 51,000 units in 2026 and 76,000 in 2027, a several-fold increase from 15,000–20,000 units in 2025.
This growth is mainly driven by dedicated commercial deployments, such as security patrols and customer service in public places (hotels, banks, museums, exhibition centers, car dealerships, and supermarkets). These applications effectively use existing task planning, mobility, and interaction capabilities while avoiding the complexity of highly dexterous operations.
Long-term Key: General AI Capabilities and the "World Model"
Goldman Sachs expects the market may respond positively to the main humanoid robot supply chain stocks in the coming trading days, anticipating a surge in applications over the next few years.
However, Goldman Sachs reminds investors to exercise caution, as first-quarter results for 2026 (to be announced in March–April) may pose challenges for supply chain stocks heavily reliant on China’s electric vehicle market.
Additionally, raw material cost inflation, especially for copper, silver, gold, and storage chips, presents potential risks to short-term profit trends. Investors should fully consider these fundamental pressures while chasing market hotspots.
Goldman Sachs emphasizes, in the long term, the pace of development of general AI capabilities will be critical, driven by effective data and model strategies, and will determine the potential upside relative to the benchmark forecast of 1.38 million units by 2035.
Goldman Sachs pays special attention to the "world model" approach, which involves internal learning representations or simulations of the environment. This enables AI agents to understand how the world works, predict future states, and plan actions without needing continuous physical interaction. This model allows robots to reason about causality and paves the way for potentially more general, capable, and safer machines.
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