GTC Berlin: Robot duck sales spike after CEO demo
Microduck preorders exceeded 20,000 units the day after Jensen Huang interacted with the devices during a keynote.
By Alina Carter ·
Preorders for the Microduck robot surpassed 20,000 units by the day following Jensen Huang’s keynote address at Nvidia’s GTC Berlin conference. Clem Delangue, co-founder of Hugging Face, confirmed the sales figure in a post on social media.
Huang was filmed on stage interacting with a group of the small robots. The video, which spread rapidly online, showed the devices waddling, falling over to simulate sleeping, and performing somersaults in response to voice commands. They emitted sounds resembling the R2-D2 droid from Star Wars.
The Microduck is an open-source device manufactured by Pollen Robotics. That company was acquired by Hugging Face in 2025. Nvidia subsequently purchased Hugging Face in September, making the robot division part of the GPU maker. This is the second robot product to come from the Hugging Face team, following the release of the Reachy Mini.
The robots were trained using Nvidia’s technology stack. Simulations taught them basic behaviors such as walking, sitting, and standing before shipment. Pollen Robotics stated that owners can teach the devices new tricks and share those programs with the community.
Delangue suggested the Microduck could become the best-selling robot of the year, potentially among adults as well as children. Promotional materials feature non-children playing with the devices. The company expects to deliver the units in time for the Christmas holiday.
