Hugging Face to sell Reachy 2 open-source humanoid robot after Pollen Robotics acquisition

AI Impact Summary

Hugging Face expands from software platforms into hardware by acquiring Pollen Robotics, folding Reachy 2 into the LeRobot/open robotics stack. This creates a combined software-hardware ecosystem where models, datasets, and spaces sit alongside an open-source humanoid robot offering, potentially accelerating embodied AI research. The first offering, Reachy 2, is open-source and VR-compatible, priced at $70k with direct sales channels, signaling a new revenue line and closer integration between robotics hardware and the Hugging Face community (e.g., labs like Cornell and CMU already using Reachy).