Hugging Face’s new programmable personal robot is flying off the shelves — and its brain comes from a Chinese chipmaker that relies on British technology, a reminder of how deeply interconnected the global semiconductor supply chain remains.
The colorful “Microduck” robot, made by Hugging Face’s French subsidiary Pollen Robotics, has sold more than 10,000 units since its launch Thursday, with sales surpassing $5 million as of late Tuesday, according to Hugging Face. That surge in demand has already pushed delivery times for new orders past the initially promised Christmas 2026 date.
The duck-shaped robot, priced at $399, is powered by a chip from Shanghai-listed Rockchip — specifically the RK3566 — which incorporates technology licensed from British semiconductor firm ARM, according to Rockchip. The robot weighs 1.76 pounds (800 grams) and functions both as an interactive consumer toy and a development platform, using open-source software that can learn from virtual simulations and goal-driven directions.
Rockchip’s role in the Microduck highlights its push into on-device artificial intelligence, a space that has drawn increasing attention as companies seek to run AI models locally rather than in the cloud. Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia, called Rockchip a “key vendor” for device-based AI, noting its chips are widely used for machine vision tasks like object detection and image recognition.
Still, Su cautioned that Rockchip’s products have limits. “While it has massive footprint, the company chips are not designed for complex edge AI devices as they lack the compute resources,” he said. Those compute capabilities are what allow smartphones, robots and other electronics to run generative AI tools securely without sending data over the internet.
Rockchip’s financial results reflect its growing momentum. Last month, the company reported a 40% year-on-year increase in operating revenue for the first half of the year, reaching 2.88 billion yuan ($428 million). Net profit excluding one-time items surged by more than 60%.
A representative for Pollen Robotics said the company chose Rockchip for Microduck because of its “on-board 1 TOPS NPU.” TOPS, or tera operations per second, measures AI computing performance. By comparison, Nvidia’s upcoming Jetson Orin Nano 2 robotics chip claims 78 TOPS of compute power.
Microduck is the second robot from Pollen Robotics, which Hugging Face acquired last year. The company’s first robot, launched last spring, also sold more than 10,000 units, Pollen Robotics said.
The fast-selling robot arrives amid a flurry of other personal robotics launches. Startup Zeroth debuted a child-sized humanoid robot this summer for 8,888 yuan, which claims similar virtual simulation learning capabilities and has listed 247 pre-orders on JD.com in China. The company plans to unveil its open-source robotics system Wednesday.
Separately, a Wall-E-style cameraman robot from Mondo Robotics has raised more than 80 times its initial $50,000 Kickstarter goal ahead of a Sept. 6 deadline. Early-bird pricing for the device, which resembles a GoPro on wheels, starts at $549, with shipping slated to begin in October.
The Microduck’s debut also comes amid deal speculation. Just before the robot’s release, The Information reported that Nvidia had agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. Neither company responded to requests for comment.
Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf said in a social media post Monday that people had begun monitoring Microduck’s supply chain, as the company experiences a strong rush of orders.
—CNBC’s April Roach and Kai Nicol-Schwarz contributed to this report.
Source: www.cnbc.com — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/01/hugging-faces-new-duck-robot-is-selling-fast-a-chinese-chip-powers-it.html
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