From Spring Festival Gala robots to the computing power energy war: Why does China hold the "trump card" in the AI ​​era?

During the Spring Festival of 2026, while the world was still marveling at OpenAI's latest model parameters, China used a Spring Festival Gala to showcase another side of AI to the world—the physical application of embodied intelligence.

Looking at the program list for the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, we see an unprecedented "AI parade." This is no longer the simple mechanical dance display of a few years ago, but a concentrated explosion of China's robotics industry with "multiple enterprises, multiple models, and all scenarios."

• Magic Atom 's full-stack cluster made the robots the best "atmosphere team," dancing alongside Jordan Chan and Jackson Yee in "The Future of Innovation," with their movements so coordinated that it was hard to tell if they were real or not.
• Unitree Robotics ' G1 and H2 robots demonstrated astonishing motion control capabilities in the documentary "Wuhan BOT"—relying entirely on edge computing power for autonomous balancing, rather than real-time remote control . When the H2, clad in a red robe, wielded a sword, it proved that the motor cerebellum of Chinese robots has matured.
• In the skit "Grandma's Favorite," Songyan Power had robots take on the comedic role of throwing out jokes and catching punchlines, completing the transformation from "prop" to "actor."
• In the short film, Galbot G1 from Galaxy Universal performs the act of "playing with walnuts." Behind this seemingly simple action lies a pinnacle of dexterity and haptic feedback technology.

This Spring Festival Gala sent a clear signal: China's AI is not just living in servers; it has grown hands and feet and entered reality.

However, just as we were cheering for the robots, Wall Street across the ocean was gripped by a silent panic. They discovered that the "blood" driving these AI systems—electricity—was running out. When we shift our focus from the Spring Festival Gala stage to Silicon Valley data centers, we see an elephant in the room—electricity.

By early 2026, US residential electricity prices had surged 36% to $0.18 per kilowatt-hour. However, this is merely the surface; the core crisis lies in the collapse of the supply side. Training a GPT-4 level model consumes the equivalent of the annual electricity of 100,000 households. It is projected that by 2028, annual electricity consumption by US data centers will surge to 600,000 GWh.

The U.S. power grid is facing a double blow of "heart disease" and "vascular embolism." Five percent of its electricity relies on aging fossil fuels and nuclear power, and these units are facing a wave of decommissioning. The U.S. power grid is fragmented into three isolated islands: the East, the West, and Texas, with extremely poor interconnectivity. Approval for a single interstate transmission line can easily take 15 years, preventing wind power from the Midwest from reaching data centers on the East Coast.

As Sam Altman said, "Energy is money." In Silicon Valley today, CEOs are no longer troubled by chip quotas, but rather—where is there enough electricity to run these chips?

If computing power is the engine of AI, then electricity is its fuel. In this energy game, China, through a decade of forward-looking planning, has built a strategic moat that the United States finds difficult to replicate.

By 2025, China had completed 45 ultra-high-voltage (UHV) projects, with the total length of UHVDC transmission lines exceeding 40,000 kilometers. This "power highway" can transmit abundant clean energy from the west to data centers in the east at millisecond speeds, or directly support "east-to-west data processing" hubs. China possesses 35 of the world's 37 largest UHVDC cable systems, a technological gap in infrastructure that the United States cannot overcome in the short term.

The high energy consumption of AI naturally necessitates clean energy sources. In 2025, China's renewable energy installed capacity historically exceeded 60%, with wind and solar power adding over 430 million kilowatts of new capacity. Nearly 4 out of every 10 kilowatt-hours of electricity consumed nationwide is green electricity. While the United States is still grappling with delays in nuclear power plant construction, China has already achieved grid parity for solar and wind power, providing a cheap and green energy solution for energy-intensive AI data centers.

China is the world's transformer manufacturing center, accounting for over 60% of global production capacity. The biggest pain point in the US power grid upgrade is the transformer shortage, with delivery times reaching 3-4 years. Whether through transshipment via Mexico or direct procurement, the maintenance of the US power grid is heavily reliant on Chinese manufacturing. While US data centers are shutting down due to transformer shortages, Chinese power equipment companies are operating at full capacity, supporting the rapid expansion of domestic computing infrastructure.

The 2026 Spring Festival Gala will not only be a celebration of robots, but also a reflection of China's industrial strength.

When we see Yushu's robot dog tumbling and Galaxy General's robot working on the screen, let's not forget that behind every agile movement, there are not only advanced algorithms, but also stable current transmitted from thousands of kilometers away via ultra-high voltage, and a powerful power grid providing support.

In the second half of this AI revolution, the marginal cost of increasing computing power will no longer depend on the nanometers of chips, but on the cost of acquiring joules. The United States possesses the most advanced algorithm design, but China has the most powerful energy conversion and transmission system.

For investors, the logic is very clear: in this gold rush, if Nvidia is selling shovels, then China's infrastructure builders (ultra-high voltage power transmission, power equipment, green energy) are controlling the real water source.