A moment from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's keynote appearance at the company's GTC Berlin conference has captured widespread attention online, after footage of him interacting with a group of small waddling robots called Microducks spread rapidly across social media. The clip showed the diminutive machines stomping around, performing somersaults, sitting down, and playing dead on voice command - all while emitting sounds reminiscent of the beloved sci-fi droid R2-D2. The reaction from the public was swift and enthusiastic.

Within 24 hours of the video circulating, preorders for the Microduck had exceeded 20,000 units, according to Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue, who shared the milestone on social media. Delangue suggested the robots could end up being the best-selling robot of the year - and not necessarily because of demand from children. Promotional materials for the product prominently feature adults engaging with the devices, hinting at a broad consumer appeal that extends well beyond the traditional toy market.

A Holiday Season Contender

With deliveries expected to arrive before Christmas, the Microduck appears positioned to become one of the more talked-about gifts of the holiday season. The combination of novelty, accessibility, and the viral attention generated by Huang's demonstration has created a level of organic demand that most consumer robotics products rarely achieve. Whether the momentum holds through to the holiday period remains to be seen, but early preorder numbers suggest the interest is genuine and substantial.

Origins and Ownership

The Microduck is an open-source device developed by Pollen Robotics, a company that was acquired by Hugging Face in 2025. That acquisition subsequently placed Pollen Robotics under the broader Nvidia umbrella, after the GPU and AI hardware giant completed its purchase of Hugging Face in September of the same year. The Microduck represents the second consumer robot to emerge from this lineage, following the earlier release of the Reachy Mini, another compact and visually appealing robotic product from the same team.

Being open source means that developers, hobbyists, and everyday users are not limited to the capabilities the robot ships with. Pollen Robotics has made it possible for owners to train their Microducks with entirely new behaviors and then share those trained routines with the broader community - a model that mirrors how open-source software communities have long operated, now applied to consumer robotics.

Trained in Simulation, Deployed in the Real World

The Microduck's core behaviors - walking, sitting, standing, and performing tricks - were developed using Nvidia's technology stack. The training process relied on simulated environments in which virtual versions of the robot were taught these foundational movements before the knowledge was transferred to physical hardware. This simulation-to-reality pipeline is an increasingly common approach in robotics development, allowing engineers to iterate rapidly without the cost and time constraints of purely physical testing.

The robots were demonstrated at GTC Berlin responding to Huang's voice commands in real time, including executing a somersault on request - a moment that drew visible delight from the audience and contributed significantly to the viral spread of the footage. Nvidia's RTX Spark platform was highlighted as part of the underlying infrastructure that supports the transition from simulated training to real-world deployment for these devices.

A Lighter Moment for the AI Industry

The Microduck's sudden popularity arrived during a week that had otherwise been difficult for the artificial intelligence sector, with AI systems facing scrutiny after being linked to a series of high-profile cyberattacks. Against that backdrop, the cheerful spectacle of a tech CEO coaxing a tiny robot duck into performing acrobatics offered something of a contrast - a reminder that the same field drawing criticism for enabling harm is also producing technology that is, in some applications, straightforwardly fun and accessible.

The video of Huang and the Microducks continues to circulate widely, and Hugging Face has indicated that the community response has exceeded initial expectations. Whether the Microduck sustains its momentum or fades as a novelty will likely depend on how the open-source ecosystem around it develops in the months ahead - and whether the broader public's appetite for small, programmable, voice-responsive robots proves to be more than a fleeting seasonal interest.