The 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala featured a humanoid robot ensemble performance that captivated audiences with its high dexterity, exceptional stability, and seamless coordination, becoming a technological highlight of the evening. This achievement is underpinned by the large-scale application of advanced materials in core components such as lightweight skeletons, joint modules, and servo motor rotors. Key materials include carbon fiber reinforced composites, high-performance resin matrix composites, and electromagnetically transparent composites. This article uses the Gala robots as a starting point to systematically review the technological pathways, performance advantages, and typical solutions for composites in robot components like rotors, body frames, joint housings, and transmission parts. It analyzes key industry challenges and looks ahead to development trends for composites against the backdrop of the booming humanoid robotics sector, providing insights for technological iteration and market positioning within the industry.
At the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, humanoid robots executed high-speed maneuvers, precise formations, and complex collaborative movements, marking a new phase in the development of China’s embodied AI and advanced manufacturing sectors. The key to these robots’ “agile” performance lies in a material system prioritizing lightweight construction, high rigidity, low inertia, and high reliability. Traditional metal skeletons and rotors face bottlenecks such as excessive weight, high energy consumption, and slow dynamic response. Composites, however, offer decisive advantages—high specific strength and modulus, designable performance, high forming freedom, and resistance to fatigue and corrosion—making them critical enablers of enhanced robot performance and opening vast new application scenarios for the composites industry.
The value of composites is particularly evident in critical robot components. Servo and joint motor rotors, the core of a robot’s power system, demand lightweight construction, high strength, low eddy current loss, and high-speed stability. The current mainstream approach utilizes materials like carbon fiber reinforced epoxy, glass fiber reinforced epoxy, and continuous carbon fiber reinforced PEEK. These materials achieve over 40% weight reduction in rotors, significantly lowering rotational inertia and improving dynamic response. Their non-magnetic/weakly magnetic nature suppresses eddy current losses, boosting motor efficiency, while high fatigue strength and low thermal expansion coefficients ensure long-term operational precision and reliability. The widespread adoption of axial flux motors in the Gala robots’ joints, featuring carbon fiber-wrapped magnets and GFRP rotor shafts, exemplifies this technology in action. Beyond rotors, continuous carbon fiber reinforced composites are used for primary load-bearing components like torsos and limbs, achieving over 45% weight reduction while maintaining high rigidity. 3D braided/hybrid composites are suitable for flexible load-bearing areas such as spines and chest cavities, balancing rigidity with human-like flexibility. CF/PEEK and chopped carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastics are employed in joint housings and reducer components, offering lightweight properties, self-lubrication, fatigue resistance, and efficient molding. Furthermore, electromagnetically transparent GFRP and flexible conductive composite materials ensure electromagnetic compatibility and human-robot interaction sensing, creating a comprehensive application portfolio covering structures, power systems, and functions.
Compared to traditional metals, composites deliver comprehensive performance improvements in robotic applications: CFRP/GFRP motor rotors replace steel and aluminum alloys, achieving over 40% weight reduction, reduced losses, and doubled lifespan. Primary skeletons made from continuous carbon fiber/epoxy replace aviation aluminum and titanium alloys, offering over 45% weight saving with enhanced rigidity and impact resistance. Joint housings and transmission components using CF/PEEK and CFRTP replace metals, achieving up to 50% weight reduction alongside low noise and maintenance-free operation. From the power core to the overall structure, composites provide foundational support for the high dynamics, precision, and energy efficiency required by modern robots.
However, the large-scale application of composites in robotics still faces challenges. High raw material costs for premium carbon fiber and PEEK resin, coupled with long molding cycles and variable yields for complex parts like rotors and non-standard skeletons, remain significant hurdles. Furthermore, simulation databases for composite structures in robots and fatigue life data are underdeveloped, leading to immature design and verification systems. Insufficient collaboration among material suppliers, component manufacturers, and robot integrators, along with a lack of unified standards, also impedes progress.
Looking ahead, as humanoid robots transition from demonstration projects to mass production and market deployment, composites are poised to follow three major trends:
Continued Material Evolution: CF/PEEK, thermoplastic carbon fiber composites, and specialized low-eddy-current-loss rotor materials will become mainstream.
Deepened Structural-Functional Integration: Rotors will evolve towards integrated designs combining “structure + electromagnetic function + heat dissipation,” further enhancing power density.
Accelerated Low-Cost Manufacturing & Localization: Efficient processes like compression molding, injection molding, and filament winding will become more prevalent. The localization rate of carbon fiber, high-end resins, and composite components will increase, accompanied by the gradual establishment of industry standards and certification systems.
The Spring Festival Gala robots were more than just a spectacular performance; they served as a concentrated technological validation of composite materials in the humanoid robotics field. Breakthroughs represented by composite rotors, lightweight skeletons, and high-performance joint components are redefining the performance boundaries and cost curves of robots. Over the next 3 to 5 years, composites are expected to evolve from an optional upgrade to a standard foundational material for robots. They will become a core driver for the synergistic development and mutual empowerment of the humanoid robot and composite materials industries, providing crucial support for China’s self-reliance and strength in high-end equipment and new materials sectors.
Currently, the value of carbon fiber in robotics has been proven in core components like robotic arms and joints, and has entered a phase of stable mass production. However, Taishi Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. deeply understands that this is merely the starting point. As humanoid robot technology accelerates towards maturity, we look forward to partnering with more OEMs, system integrators, and innovative developers to expand the application of carbon fiber composites into entirely new scenarios such as torso frames, bionic limbs, mobile platforms, and even wearable exoskeletons.