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# Hugging Face Acquires Pollen Robotics to Advance Open-Source Humanoid Robots
- URL: https://www.theleftshift.com/hugging-face-acquires-pollen-robotics-to-advance-open-source-humanoid-robots/
- Published: 2025-04-14T17:08:59.000Z
- Updated: 2025-05-30T05:56:06.000Z
- Description: This strategic move aims to democratize robotics by making cutting-edge technology more accessible for research, education, and real-world applications.
- Author: The Left Shift Bureau
- Tags: Robotics, #a42

Opensource AI champion Hugging Face has announced its acquisition of French robotics startup **Pollen Robotics**, known for developing **Reachy**, a modular, open-source humanoid robot. 

This strategic move aims to democratize robotics by making cutting-edge technology more accessible for research, education, and real-world applications.

> Super happy to announce that we are acquiring [@pollenrobotics](https://twitter.com/pollenrobotics?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=theleftshift.com) to bring open-source robots to the world! 🤖  
>  
> Since [@RemiCadene](https://twitter.com/RemiCadene?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=theleftshift.com) joined us from Tesla, we’ve become the most widely used software platform for open robotics thanks to [@LeRobotHF](https://twitter.com/LeRobotHF?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=theleftshift.com) and the Hugging Face Hub. Now, we’re… [pic.twitter.com/9PVLP2Nq1H](https://t.co/9PVLP2Nq1H?ref=theleftshift.com)
> 
> — Hugging Face (@huggingface) [April 14, 2025](https://twitter.com/huggingface/status/1911785683376648232?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=theleftshift.com)

Under the leadership of former Tesla robotics engineer **Remi Cadene**, Hugging Face has been expanding into the robotics space through its **“Le Robot”** initiative. The acquisition of Pollen Robotics marks a major step toward creating open, affordable, and hackable robotic platforms.

> At Hugging Face—in robotics and across all AI fields—we believe in a future where AI and robots are open-source, transparent, and affordable; community-built and safe; hackable and fun. We've had so much mutual understanding and passion working with the Pollen Robotics team over the past year that we decided to join forces! -Thomas Wolf, Co-founder at Hugging Face
  
  
Founded in 2016 by **Matthieu Lapeyre** and **Pierre Rouanet**, Pollen Robotics gained recognition for **Reachy 2** — a bio-inspired robot featuring **VR teleoperation, stereo vision, spatialized audio**, and modular components. Already used by leading institutions like **Cornell** and **Carnegie Mellon**, Reachy 2 is available for purchase at $70,000.

Moving forward, Hugging Face plans to combine its AI models with Pollen’s hardware to enhance Reachy’s capabilities and accelerate the open robotics movement.