AI-model platform Hugging Face has acquired robotics startup Pollen Robotics and plans on selling the robot and making its code open-source.
Why It Hits: Despite the many security risks, open-sourcing AI has become popular, even among giant firms. Meta does it. DeepSeek upped the ante. And, now, OpenAI is set to release an open-source model. By putting open-source capabilities in robotics, anyone will be able to customize humanoid robots… for better or worse.
Behind the Code: Pollen Robotics, which is best known for the two-armed, humanoid bot Reachy 2, will soon be available to everyone in more ways than one.
By making Pollen’s code open-source, developers and engineers would be able to manipulate the code and build on its capabilities freely.
They’ll also have access to design blueprints and can even 3D-print spare or custom parts.
Eventually, that could lead to people having their own version of Reachy 2 in their homes.
The Future: Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue says the open-sourcing of Pollen’s code is needed to reach a higher “level of trust and transparency” than “something I chat with on my laptop.” Pollen CEO Matthieu Lapeyre piggybacks off that when he says Hugging Face’s plan will allow for the democratization of building humanoid robots, which is a sector currently dominated by companies like Figure, Agility, and Tesla.
So, it’s a classic “keep the big players at bay by giving everyone the power to get under the hood of cutting-edge tech” play. We hope people tinker responsibly.
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