Earlier this week, a video of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang interacting with a group of Microducks robots walking unsteadily during his keynote speech at the company's GTC Berlin conference went viral online.
These robots stomped their little feet while making a soft R2-D2 kind of sound; they could sit down, fall to the ground as if taking a nap at the command, and even do somersaults upon verbal instruction. They are so adorable that by the next day, the pre-sale of Microducks had already exceeded 20,000 units. This data was disclosed in a post about the Hugging Face's Clem Delangue.
Microducks is expected to be delivered before Christmas, which means these robots may already be on their way to becoming the hottest toys of this holiday season. Delangue believes that they could ultimately become the best-selling robots of the year, and buyers may not even be just children. The promotional videos also show adults playing with them.
Microducks is an open-source device produced by Pollen Robotics. Pollen Robotics was acquired by Hugging Face in 2025, which means they now belong to the NVIDIA ecosystem. NVIDIA acquired Hugging Face in September. This is actually Hugging Face's second robot product; the first one is the equally adorable Reachy Mini.
Microducks is trained using NVIDIA's technology stack: Its simulation version first learns basic movements and skills in a simulated environment, such as walking, sitting, standing, etc., and comes out of the factory already possessing these abilities. Pollen indicates that users can also train their own robots to learn new movements and then share them with the community.
The following is that video. TechCrunch writes that after the AI industry self-damaged this week due to a series of cyberattacks attributed to the involvement of AI, this video might be able to change people's mood a bit. The article states that AI may indeed be capable of causing serious harm to the world, but it can also be quite interesting; it's hard not to want to place an order for one after watching this video.
