Could the hottest toy of Christmas 2026 be a robot duck? A video of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang playing with a flock of waddling Microduck robots during his keynote at the company’s GTC Berlin conference went viral this week — and by the next day, preorders had surpassed 20,000 units.
The little bots stomp their tiny feet, make R2-D2 noises, sit, fall over “dead” for a nap and even do summersaults on voice command. And they’re expected to be delivered in time for Christmas — setting them up as a genuine holiday hit.
(Credits: TechCrunch)
Microduck Robots: What Are They and Who Makes Them?
Microducks are open source devices produced by Pollen Robotics, a company acquired by Hugging Face in 2025. Hugging Face itself was bought by Nvidia in September, making this effectively an Nvidia-family product — and it’s Hugging Face’s second robot, after the also-cute Reachy Mini.
The robots were trained using Nvidia’s technology stack, where simulations taught them basic tricks — walk, sit, stand — that they ship with. But the open-source angle is the real hook: owners can train their robots with new tricks and share them with the community.
Will Microducks Be the Best-Selling Robot of the Year?
Hugging Face’s Clem Delangue revealed the 20,000-preorder milestone in a tweet — and thinks the Microducks might end up the best-selling robot of the year. And not just for kids: promotional videos show adults playing with them too.
After a brutal week of cyberattack headlines blamed on AI, the Microduck moment landed as a palate cleanser. As one Nvidia social post put it: “When Jensen Huang asks for a somersault, you deliver.”
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Source: TechCrunch — read the full story there.
