Open Source Humanoid Robots: Hugging Face Buys Pollen Robotics
Reachy 2 is an open source humanoid robot from Pollen Robotics, which was just bought by Hugging ... More Face.
The open source AI community Hugging Face has bought open source humanoid robots company Pollen Robots, Hugging Face announced this morning. That's great news for pretty much every country that is not the USA or China, the two nations that lead the world in humanoid robotics startups and innovation.
'Super happy to announce that we are acquiring Pollen Robotics to bring open-source robots to the world,' Hugging Face said on X. 'Since Remi Cadene joined us from Tesla, we've become the most widely used software platform for open robotics thanks to LeRobotHF and the Hugging Face Hub. Now, we're taking it a step further by teaming up with Pollen, who is one of the only companies in the world that actually ships open-source humanoid robots!'
Pollen Robotics currently offers Reachy 2, a roughly humanoid robot that anyone can buy today for $70,000. It's a rudimentary model right now that does not walk but moves on a wheeled mobile base or can be fixed in position. It does have advanced robotic arms with seven degrees of freedom for complex manipulation of objects, but only a 3 kilogram/6.6 pound lifting capacity per arm.
Reachy 2 can be teleoperated with VR equipment, is fully open source, can be programmed in Python, and comes in multiple models with varying capability, but it's best seen as a proof of concept right now. It's certainly nowhere near the level of commercial models like 4NE-1 from Neura Robotics, Apollo from Apptronik, Figure 02 from Figure, Optimus from Tesla, or Digit from Agility Robotics.
Nor would Reachy 2 vault Pollen Robotics on to this list of the top 16 humanoid robot manufacturers on the planet.
But this deal is still significant.
Humanoid robots are advancing in leaps and bounds. Credible industry observers see them as adding serious value to the workforce in a fairly short period of time: years not decades. If that does in fact occur, nations and companies that own and/or adopt these kinds of technologies will be significantly more competitive than those who do not.
Over time and with mass manufacturing, the price of labor could approach zero, which fundamentally disrupts current economic and social models.
Having open source humanoid robots could be a very valuable resource to those who do not develop the technology themselves. We've seen it before in software with Linux; it's theoretically possible in a hardware world as well.
'We believe robotics could be the next interface for AI — and it should be open, affordable, and hackable,' says Hugging Face. 'Our vision: a future where everyone from the community can build and control their own robot companions instead of relying on closed, expensive black boxes.'
That's especially important if the alternative is that you acquire robots from a potentially unfriendly nation that leaves a backdoor in their robots which can turn them into surveillance devices for that nation, as recently appears to have happened with Unitree Robotics's robot dog Go-1.
According to MSN, Hugging Face co-founder and chief scientist Thomas Wolf would like to make Reachy 2 (or Reachy 5, or 10) fully open source so that anyone could download schematics for the robot and potentially even 3D print their own.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but it appears that Pollen's entire team of about 20 will be joining Hugging Face, including Pollen's two co-founders, Matthieu Lapeyre and Pierre Rouanet.
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