Preorders for the small Microduck robot passed 20,000 after Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang demonstrated a group of the machines at GTC Berlin. The duck-shaped robots responded to voice commands by walking, sitting, pretending to nap and performing a somersault.
Microduck is an open-source device produced by Pollen Robotics, which Hugging Face acquired in 2025. Nvidia bought Hugging Face in September, placing the project inside the chipmaker’s wider robotics portfolio. Pollen previously developed the Reachy Mini desktop robot.
The devices were trained in simulation with Nvidia’s technology stack and ship with basic movements already installed. Owners will be able to train additional behaviors and share them with the community, making the product both a consumer robot and a small experimentation platform.
The reported 20,000 figure comes from Hugging Face chief executive Clem Delangue, and deliveries are expected before Christmas. A viral stage demo and preorder count do not establish long-term demand or how easy custom training will be for ordinary buyers. The launch does, however, put simulation-trained robotics into a relatively approachable form that developers can modify rather than a closed toy with fixed routines.