Preorders for Microduck robots passed 20,000 within a day of NVIDIA chief executive Jensen Huang playing with a flock of them on stage at GTC Berlin, according to TechCrunch, which cited Hugging Face chief executive Clem Delangue. The small robots walked, sat, fell over for a “nap” and somersaulted on voice command in a keynote video that spread widely online. Microduck is an open-source device from Pollen Robotics, which Hugging Face acquired in 2025, and deliveries are expected in time for Christmas. Delangue suggested the robot could become the year’s best-selling robot, with promotional videos showing adults playing with them as well as children.
A keynote video that spread fast
According to TechCrunch, the video showed Huang playing with the waddling Microducks during his keynote at NVIDIA’s GTC Berlin conference earlier in the week. The robots stomped their feet and made small electronic noises as they sat, fell down for a “nap” and somersaulted on voice command. TechCrunch reported that preorders passed 20,000 units by the next day, based on what Delangue said in a post on X. The report said deliveries are expected in time for Christmas, which would put the robots on sale for the holiday season. Delangue thinks they might end up being the best-selling robot of the year, and possibly not only for children, since the promotional videos show adults playing with them too. NVIDIA’s GTC Berlin keynote also carried other product news, including the arrival of its $4,999 DGX Spark desktop system with buyers.
An open-source robot owners can teach
Microducks are open-source devices produced by Pollen Robotics, a company Hugging Face acquired in 2025. That makes Microduck the second robot from Hugging Face, after the Reachy Mini. According to TechCrunch, the robots were trained using NVIDIA’s technology stack. Simulations taught them basic tricks, including walking, sitting and standing, and those tricks ship with the device. Pollen Robotics says owners can train their robots with new tricks and then share them with the community. That open approach sets Microduck apart from most toy robots, where the behaviour is fixed at the factory and owners cannot add to it.
TechCrunch described the robots as stomping their little feet and making tiny electronic noises as they moved. The report did not give a price for Microduck, name the preorder channel, or pin down an exact delivery date beyond the Christmas window. Those details will matter to buyers weighing an order, since a holiday delivery promise leaves little room for slippage. For now, the confirmed facts are the demonstration, the preorder figure Delangue reported, and the open-source design that lets owners add tricks after purchase.
Why It Matters
Microduck matters because it turns a conference demonstration into a public test of open robotics. A robot that owners can retrain and share tricks for invites a community to extend it, rather than leaving every improvement to the manufacturer. The preorder figure also shows how quickly a vivid demonstration can create demand, even for a device from a robotics company that most buyers had never heard of. If deliveries land before Christmas as planned, the holiday season will show whether adults as well as children buy a small open-source robot, and whether community-trained tricks become a reason to keep using it after the novelty fades.
Background
Hugging Face runs a platform where developers discover, share and deploy open models, datasets and applications, and its open-model work includes releases such as Carbon-X, a model that chats about DNA in plain English. NVIDIA agreed in September to acquire Hugging Face for approximately $12.9 billion, a deal expected to close in the first half of 2027 subject to regulatory approvals, with NVIDIA pledging that Hugging Face will remain an open platform.
Source: TechCrunch, HPCwire
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