Hugging Face unveiled the Microduck on Thursday, a cute little duck-like robot that sells for $399 — and ships before Christmas. Clem Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face, said the Microduck is an “open-source robot you can teach new tricks with reinforcement learning.” The 25-centimeter-tall duck can waddle, pick things up with its beak (up to 800 grams), get back up when it falls, crouch, and even roller skate. Hugging Face is best known as a platform and community where developers go for open model weights.
However, the company acquired French startup Pollen Robotics in April 2025 to build affordable, open-source AI hardware. A couple of months later, the two launched Reachy Mini, a small desktop robot. Today, they sell the $499 Reachy Mini, which is powered by a Raspberry Pi computer, and the $399 Reachy Mini Lite, powered by a Mac or PC.
The new Microduck perceives the world with a camera, lidar sensors, and two IMUs (inertial measurement units that measure and report an object’s movement). Pollen Robotics noted that the Microduck’s behaviors can be trained in simulation and directly deployed on the robot. Developers can then fine-tune the bot, re-train it, and re-deploy it.
The SDK (software development kit), simulation, and full RL training stack are available on GitHub. For those who might find it concerning to have a robot with a camera in their bedrooms and private spaces, Delangue previously told TechCrunch that bots run by open-source models are much better from a privacy standpoint than “a black box system” controlled by a few organizations, “especially if these organizations’ CEO is not the most stable person in the world.” While open source gives developers auditability and control, it doesn’t provide a guarantee that sensitive data remains private after consumers start installing software applications on top of the model. Those apps can access the bot’s cameras and microphones and, depending on how they’re built, send that data to external services.
The launch of the Microduck comes as Hugging Face is reportedly set to be acquired by Nvidia at a $13 billion valuation. Nvidia and Hugging Face have been partners for years, with Nvidia providing the startup’s infrastructure since at least 2023. Both companies have also been publicly aligned in promoting open-source AI.
Hugging Face was recently in the headlines over a cybersecurity incident that occurred after OpenAI’s systems breached its sandbox during safety testing and hacked into the platform’s servers. TechCrunch has reached out to Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics for more information.
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