HuggingFace's 'AI Duck' Sells Out, Boosting Chinese Chip Supplier Rockchip
Original Title: "HuggingFace's $399 'AI Duck' Sells Out, Chinese Chip Supplier Rockchip 'Rises for Two Consecutive Days'"
Original Author: Long Yue, Wall Street Journal
Hugging Face's French subsidiary has launched the $399 open-source robot Microduck, which has sold over 10,000 units since its release, generating sales exceeding $5 million, with delivery times now extended to after Christmas 2026. Microduck is powered by the RK3566 chip from Chinese chip manufacturer Rockchip, which utilizes ARM's licensed technology from the UK; this news has boosted the company's stock price, which has risen consecutively. An open-source robot resembling a small duck, priced at $399, has sold over 10,000 units within days of its launch, leading to a continuous rise in Rockchip's stock on the A-shares market.
According to the latest report from CNBC, the Microduck robot launched by Hugging Face's French subsidiary Pollen Robotics has sold over 10,000 units since its release last Thursday, with sales exceeding $5 million as of Tuesday evening. Strong order demand has caused new order delivery times to be pushed back to after Christmas 2026.
Driven by the news of Microduck's hot sales, Rockchip, a Shanghai-listed company providing the core computing chip, has seen its stock price rise consecutively on Monday and Tuesday, attracting market attention. Over the past five days, the cumulative increase has been about 15%, although today the stock price experienced a slight pullback.
### A Duck Igniting a Chinese Chip
Microduck is priced at $399, weighs approximately 800 grams, stands about 25 centimeters tall, and is equipped with sensors including a camera, microphone, speaker, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and LiDAR.

Its core computing unit comes from Rockchip's RK3566 chip. Pollen Robotics stated that they chose Rockchip because of its "onboard 1 TOPS NPU"—a neural network processing unit capable of 1 trillion operations per second.
Market research firm Omdia's chief analyst Lian Jye Su positions Rockchip as a "key supplier" for edge AI, noting that its chips are widely used in machine vision scenarios involving object detection and image recognition.
However, Lian Jye Su also pointed out limitations: "Although Rockchip's chips have a wide coverage, they are not designed for complex edge AI devices due to a lack of sufficient computing resources."
The RK3566 chip also utilizes licensed technology from the UK semiconductor company ARM.
### Microduck: Open Source, Trainable, Not Just a 'Toy Duck'
Microduck's biggest selling point is not its ability to roller skate or grab socks, but that users can 'teach' it themselves.
As previously mentioned by Wall Street Journal, Microduck supports reinforcement learning—robots learn new physical skills through trial and error rather than relying on pre-programmed instructions from engineers. Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue stated that this is "the first affordable AI robot that can be taught new skills through reinforcement learning."
He also mentioned that the team specifically designed Microduck to be "born for movement and ready to fall," emphasizing, "We also hope these robots can teach people that robots can fail and make mistakes, and you need to consider this in the design."
Microduck does not have traditional dual arms; it uses a movable 'duck bill' to grasp objects, capable of picking up items weighing up to 800 grams and can stand back up after being knocked over.
### Orders Booming, Delivery in Crisis
Hugging Face co-founder and chief scientist Thomas Wolf posted on social media that users have begun monitoring the Microduck supply chain, as the company faces a surge in orders.
After Microduck opened for pre-order, the sales rate reached one unit every four seconds. Hugging Face aims to sell over 20,000 units, with the first batch originally scheduled for delivery before Christmas, but the delivery time for new orders has now been postponed.
Microduck is manufactured in China, with Shenzhen-based open-source hardware company Seeed Studio involved in production.
### Hugging Face Doubles Down on Physical AI, Nvidia Acquisition Rumors Unresolved
Microduck is the second robot launched by Hugging Face. Previously, Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics jointly launched Reachy Mini, which also sold over 10,000 units; Hugging Face subsequently acquired Pollen Robotics.
Just before the launch of Microduck, The Information reported that Nvidia had agreed to acquire Hugging Face for approximately $12.9 billion. Neither company has commented on this.
Meanwhile, similar products are also emerging in the market: startup Zeroth has launched a child-sized humanoid robot priced at 8,888 yuan; Mondo Robotics' Wall-E style camera robot has raised over 80 times its goal on Kickstarter, with early bird prices starting at $549.
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