The China Media Group (CMG) held the first rehearsal for the 2026 Spring Festival Gala on Saturday, fine-tuning the highly anticipated TV event amid the festive atmosphere of the traditional Chinese New Year.
The rehearsal seamlessly integrated innovative technologies with vibrant stage visuals, offering a first glimpse of the gala's overall impact under the theme "Galloping Steed, Onward Unstoppable.”
Inspired by traditional Chinese culture, the Year of the Horse gala incorporates zodiac themes that symbolize perseverance and progress. The production merges art and technology, using AI, AR, and XR to create immersive, blended-reality visuals. Horse-themed artistic installations shape a dynamic stage, while original songs and opera pieces convey the spirited ethos of the zodiac year.
Robots, which made their debut in last year's gala, will once again take the stage at the Spring Festival Gala, showcasing the country's technological advancements.
Known as "Chunwan" in Chinese, the gala has been broadcast live annually since 1983 and is regarded as a major cultural symbol for the Chinese New Year celebrations in China. This year's gala will air on Feb 16, the eve of the Chinese New Year.
The gala has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the most-watched annual television program worldwide. Just over a year ago, the Spring Festival itself was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
CMG holds first rehearsal for 2026 Spring Festival Gala
Chinese scientists announced Monday that they have achieved a breakthrough in yak cloning, with 10 cloned calves all naturally delivered in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region.
These calves, consisting of three black yaks and seven white ones, were born from March 25 to April 5 at a yak breeding and research base in Xizang's Damxung County, all meeting expected standards and steadily gaining weight.
The mass births came after the first cloned yak was born in July 2025, which has grown healthily and weighs about 183 kg now.
The achievement was made using a domestically developed breeding system that combines whole-genome selection with somatic cell cloning, following three years of research by a Chinese scientific team.
"Whole-genome selection can accurately pinpoint excellent genetic loci associated with large body size, fast growth, strong fecundity and disease resistance, high feed conversion efficiency, and tolerance to high-altitude and low-oxygen conditions (cold resistance). On this basis, somatic cell cloning enables 1:1 precise replication of the genotype through asexual rapid propagation (cloning), thereby compressing the breeding cycle to within five years," said Fang Shengguo, a professor at the College of Life Sciences at Zhejiang University and director of the State Conservation Center for Gene Resources of Endangered Wildlife.
Yak farming is one of the key industries targeted for development in Xizang during the country's 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030). Traditional yak breeding has relied on phenotype selection, a process that can take up to 20 years and often leads to declining genetic quality.
Researchers said the new method can shorten the breeding cycle to less than five years by accurately identifying desirable genetic traits such as faster growth, disease resistance, feed efficiency and adaptation to high-altitude, low-oxygen environments, while enabling rapid replication of elite breeding stock.
Experts added that the technology could also support conservation efforts for rare yak genetic resources, including the endangered golden wild yak, whose population in Xizang is estimated at more than 300.
So far, the research team has developed more than 200 cloned embryos of golden wild yaks and hybrid wild-blood yaks, laying the groundwork for future embryo transfer and species recovery programs.
China achieves large-scale births of cloned yaks
