A group of waddling Microduck robots stole the spotlight during Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's keynote at GTC Berlin, the chipmaker's developer conference, and the desk-sized robot has since drawn a wave of advance orders. Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue said in a post that Microduck was on track to become the year's best-selling robot — though his wording stopped short of confirming the milestone had already been reached.

"Going to cross 20,000+ total pre-orders probably tomorrow making Microduck probably the most sold robot of 2026?" Delangue wrote.

The figure refers to advance orders, not robots already delivered to customers.

A viral keynote, then a surge of preorders

In an October 21 clip from the keynote, Huang asks the robot for a somersault. The ducks walk, sit, and play dead on command. Microduck was built by Pollen Robotics, which became part of Hugging Face in 2025. Nvidia agreed to acquire Hugging Face in September, though the deal is not expected to close until 2027. Microduck deliveries are expected before Christmas, the first point at which the preorder wave turns into shipped robots.

What the Microduck actually is

The Microduck is more of a programmable desk robot than a household assistant. It stands 25 centimeters tall, weighs 800 grams, and is equipped with 15 motors, a camera, LIDAR, and two inertial sensors. It ships with seven trained moves, but owners can teach it new tricks and share those movements with other Microduck users. Its software is open source under Apache 2.0 — a license that lets anyone inspect, modify, and redistribute the code — and the robot costs $399 before taxes and shipping.

In an October 23 technical post, Nvidia showed how robots like Microduck can learn to move through simulation. AI agents first created a virtual obstacle course. Isaac Lab then trained the robot's movements across 4,096 simulated environments using a Blackwell GPU, and Isaac Sim checked its performance before testing moved to a physical robot. Simulating first lets engineers test far more variations, far faster, than physical prototypes would allow.

According to Epoch AI, robots can already navigate warehouses and make deliveries, but handling everyday objects at home is another matter. Robots typically work three to ten times slower than humans and often need retraining when faced with unfamiliar tasks. Microduck's seven trained moves may be entertaining, but they do not solve these problems.

Who is actually buying robots right now?

Nearly 25,000 humanoid robots were shipped worldwide in the first half of 2026, according to IDC figures reported by Forbes. That is a 432.1% increase from a year earlier, with revenue topping $740 million. Chinese manufacturers produced more than 95% of them. However, 69% of shipments went to research, exhibitions, and data collection rather than everyday commercial work.

Consumer robots tell a different story. The IFR reported that sales reached 34.2 million units in 2025, up 37%. Most were household robots, such as automated vacuum cleaners, rather than humanoids.

In a survey, 65% of U.S. respondents said they wanted an advanced home robot. Yet 69% would not pay more than $5,000, and about half worried about safety. Microduck's $399 price sits well below that $5,000 ceiling.

Former Nvidia robotics executive Amulya Vishwanath called the industry a "Lego era" in Cryptopolitan, pointing to unfinished components and safety systems. McKinsey sees supply-chain limits, too.

The real win for Nvidia may be infrastructure

While selling robots may not be Nvidia's greatest opportunity, BCG reports that software training and deployment could drive growth in the robotics sector. For its part, Nvidia intends to become the supplier of the chips and simulation technologies used by those robots, regardless of whether they come from China or elsewhere. The case of Microduck insight into this broader approach.