Adorable Microduck robots are the hottest toy for Christmas after Nvidia CEO plays with one and 20,000 sell.

Nvidia Microducks Go Viral at GTC Berlin and Lead to 20,000 Preorders

Meta description: A GTC Berlin keynote video of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang with Hugging Face Microducks went viral, driving over 20,000 preorders before Christmas.

Tags: Nvidia, Hugging Face, Microducks, robotics, AI

Featured image: One abstract technology image: glowing simulation grid transforming into small robot duck shapes, no real people, no company logos, no text.

Earlier this week, Nvidia Microducks became the unexpected breakout from a conference demo. During a keynote at Nvidia’s GTC Berlin event, CEO Jensen Huang appeared with a flock of small waddling robots that sat, fell down for a nap, made tiny R2-D2 sounds, and performed somersaults when given voice commands. The clip spread quickly, and by the following day Hugging Face’s Clem Delangue said in a tweet that preorders had surpassed 20,000 units.

Acquisition path before the keynote

The robots are open source devices produced by Pollen Robotics. Hugging Face acquired Pollen Robotics in 2025, and Nvidia bought Hugging Face in September. Through that acquisition chain, the Microducks are now connected to Nvidia, the company whose CEO introduced them on stage.

The product is not the first robot tied to the Hugging Face hardware effort. It follows the Reachy Mini, another small robot from the same lineage. The Microducks were trained using Nvidia’s technology stack, with simulated versions taught basic behaviors such as walking, sitting, and standing. Those are the tricks shipped with the devices out of the box.

Viral moment and holiday delivery outlook

The moment that made the story move online was not just the robot’s appearance, but its ability to respond to voice commands in a way that felt playful rather than purely technical. The robots’ footstep movements, sounds, and sudden nap-like falls gave the clip a toy-like charm. A post from NVIDIA RTX Spark on October 21, 2026, said AI agents on NVIDIA RTX Spark helped bring the Microduck from simulation to the real world.

By the next day, the preorders had surpassed 20,000 units. The expected delivery time is in time for Christmas, which places the Microducks in a competitive holiday toy window. Delangue suggested they could become the best-selling robot of the year, and the promotional videos show adults playing with them too, pointing to a market that is not limited to children.

Open source training and community sharing

A key detail behind the sales buzz is the open source framing. Pollen Robotics says owners can train their own Microducks with new tricks and then share those tricks with the community. That creates a simple loop: the shipped simulation-trained behaviors get the robot moving, while owners and developers can expand what it knows after delivery.

The demo also arrived during a difficult stretch for the AI sector, in which AI involvement was blamed for cyberattack after cyberattack. That made the Microducks clip a lighter counterpoint to an otherwise tense week. The practical question is not only whether a cute robot can trend, but whether a holiday delivery schedule and a community trick-sharing model can turn a viral keynote moment into a sustained product story.

The next verifiable milestone is the Christmas delivery window, while the longer-term test is whether owners will train and share new tricks as Pollen Robotics describes.