PARIS, Aug.27, 2026 /Commerce Wire News/ — Hugging Face, world‑leading open‑source AI platform, has officially launched Microduck, an open‑source miniature biped robot, through its French robotics subsidiary Pollen Robotics. Priced at USD399 for global developer pre‑orders, the new product has generated overwhelming market traction, securing USD2.6 million in confirmed pre‑orders within 24 hours. Peak sales hit one unit every four seconds. Official delivery guidance has since been revised to a four‑to‑six‑month lead‑time for new orders amid supply‑chain constraints.
Standing 25 cm tall and weighing under 800 g, the duck‑shaped Microduck integrates 15 high‑precision servo motors, wide‑angle camera, ToF LiDAR and dual IMUs. Powered by Rockchip RK3566 edge‑AI system‑on‑chip with built‑in NPU, it supports on‑device AI inference. Connectivity includes Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth and NFC. Its duck‑bill gripper delivers a payload capacity up to 800 grams. Seven preset behaviours such as walking, squatting, object‑grasping and fall self‑righting are available out‑of‑the‑box.
The platform delivers an end‑to‑end reinforcement‑learning workflow for robot developers. Programmers can train locomotion‑control policies in the MuJoCo physics simulation environment via Python APIs, export trained models in ONNX format for physical‑robot deployment, and publish finished projects onto Hugging Face Hub, enabling a full pipeline of simulation, training, deployment and community‑driven knowledge sharing.
Clem Delangue, Chief Executive Officer of Hugging Face, remarked at the product launch that Microduck is designed to become the “Raspberry Pi of embodied intelligence”. Historically, high‑priced biped‑robot research hardware has created barriers for universities, independent developers and start‑ups conducting experiments on world‑models and multimodal human‑robot interaction. By combining an affordable price tag with fully‑open architecture, Microduck lowers barriers to physical‑AI R&D and fosters distributed innovation worldwide.
Hugging Face completed its acquisition of Pollen Robotics back in April 2025 to enter the developer‑robotics market, following the Reachy Mini desktop robot product series. Unlike consumer‑grade household robots, Microduck is built purely as an open R&D and algorithm‑validation platform, targeting university labs, AI research groups, freelance engineers and robotics start‑ups.
Sales metrics indicate pre‑order revenue passed USD1 million six hours post‑launch, climbing to USD2.6 million after 24 hours. Pollen Robotics published an official supply‑chain update on its website: new customers can no longer guarantee Christmas‑2026 delivery. Orders are fulfilled on a first‑come‑first‑served basis, with revised delivery lead‑times of four‑to‑six months. By early September, cumulative global reservations have surpassed 10 000 units, drawing widespread attention from the international tech sector, open‑source community and venture‑capital investors.
Industry analysts note that Microduck’s commercial breakthrough marks a major inflection‑point for the embodied‑AI industry. Humanoid‑robot research has long been dominated by large technology corporations with substantial capital expenditure requirements. Microduck brings together European robotics algorithms, Chinese semiconductor solutions and mature Asian precision‑manufacturing supply‑chains, delivering a standardized, low‑cost hardware foundation. This empowers large cohorts of developers to conduct research on locomotion control, on‑device world‑modelling and sim‑to‑real transfer, accelerating AI’s transition from large‑language‑models toward real‑world physical deployment.
As the open‑source biped‑robot ecosystem matures, a dual‑track industry roadmap is expected to take shape in coming years: large‑scale enterprises will focus on commercial‑grade general‑purpose humanoid robots, while smaller developer teams will leverage platforms such as Microduck to run niche‑use‑case algorithm trials. These parallel innovation pathways are poised to jointly drive the expansion of the global embodied‑AI sector.
Key Specifications
• Developer: Pollen Robotics (Hugging Face Group)
• Official Price: USD 399
• Height: 25 cm
• Weight: <800 g
• Actuators: 15 high‑precision servo motors
• Sensors: Wide‑angle camera, ToF LiDAR, dual IMUs
• Main Chip: Rockchip RK3566 with built‑in NPU for edge‑AI inference
• Software Stack: Python API, MuJoCo simulation, ONNX deployment, Hugging Face Hub
• Delivery Update: Original Christmas‑2026 batch closed; new‑order lead‑time: four‑to‑six months
About Hugging Face
Headquartered in the United States, Hugging Face is one of the world’s largest open‑source‑AI community platforms, hosting large‑language‑models, multimodal models, robotics development toolkits and other resources. Its LeRobot initiative is dedicated to advancing open‑source innovation across robotics.