Microduck Robot Uses Rockchip Chip as Sales Top 10,000 Units

According to CNBC, the Microduck programmable personal robot from Hugging Face's French subsidiary Pollen Robotics uses Rockchip's RK3566 chip, which incorporates technology licensed from British semiconductor company ARM. The robot has sold more than 10,000 units since its launch on Thursday, generating more than $4 million at a $399 unit price, and new orders are now facing delivery delays beyond the original Christmas 2026 estimate. Rockchip said the chip includes ARM technology, while Omdia chief analyst Lian Jye Su said the Chinese company is a key vendor for on-device AI and that its chips are commonly used for machine vision tasks such as object detection and image recognition. Su also said the chips are not designed for complex edge AI devices because they lack the necessary compute resources. Rockchip last month reported a 40% year-on-year increase in first-half operating revenue to 2.88 billion yuan ($428 million), while net profit excluding one-time items rose by more than 60%. Pollen Robotics said the 1.76 pound Microduck is both an interactive consumer toy and a development platform. The company said its first robot, launched last spring, also sold more than 10,000 units. The article also said The Information reported that Nvidia had agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, though neither company commented.