Monday, April 14, 2025

Hugging Face Acquires Pollen Robotics To Unleash Open Source AI Robots

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"It's really important for robotics to be as open source as possible," says Clément Delangue, chief executive of Hugging Face. "When you think about physical objects doing physical things at work and at home, the level of trust and transparency I need is much higher than for something I chat with on my laptop."

In videos shared by Pollen Robotics, Reachy 2 can be seen performing tricks like tidying coffee mugs and picking up fruit . Matthieu Lapeyre, cofounder and CEO of Pollen Robotics, says several leading AI companies are using Reachy 2 to research robotic manipulation, although he says he can't name them due to confidentiality agreements. The ultimate goal is for people to use descendants of Reachy 2 in their homes.

Many AI models, software frameworks, and tools that researchers and engineers rely on to build AI models and applications are already open source. This means the models are shared free of charge, with licenses that allow the code to be modified and reused. Making hardware open source typically means releasing designs, component details, and 3D models that allow pieces to be manufactured more easily.

The availability of powerful open-weight AI models (meaning downloadable but not necessarily fully open source) has made it easier for researchers and startups to experiment with cutting-edge AI, as they can see how models work and modify the code. Delangue says that Hugging Face believes something similar is needed in robotics. "Hopefully open source can unleash a wide and diverse range of [new robot] capabilities," he says.

The current AI boom has coincided with renewed interest in robotics, as the latest models help enable new advances in the capabilities of hardware systems. Some prominent researchers argue that AI will need a physical presence in order to match or surpass human intelligence, because that advancement may require a direct understanding of the physical world.

The hype surrounding humanoid robots has led to some dubious claims. Some of the companies racing to build humanoid robots have posted demo videos on social media that seem to promise incredible abilities. But experts warn that such videos could be misleading. A system that seems extraordinary online could in fact be tele-operated by a person off camera. It could also fail if conditions change even slightly or be unable to complete a task reliably.

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