The latest AI news, in focus.

NVIDIA CEO demonstrates the Microduck robot, sparking a pre-sale frenzy with orders exceeding 20,000 units.

At the GTC Berlin conference, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang demonstrated Microduck, a robot developed by Pollen Robotics and now part of Hugging Face (which has been acquired by NVIDIA). This open-source robot can perform actions such as walking, sitting, pretending to sleep, and even doing backflips—all via voice commands. Following the video’s viral success, pre-orders exceeded 20,000 units the next day, positioning it as a potential holiday-season hit toy. These robots are trained using NVIDIA’s technology stack, enabling users to customize their training and share new skills.

Why it mattersThe information is generated based on the provided TechCrunch article and fact list. The material states that Microduck is manufactured by Pollen Robotics, which was acquired by Hugging Face in 2025, and that NVIDIA acquired Hugging Face in September of the same year. The pre-sale data, feature descriptions, and delivery timelines mentioned in the text are directly quoted from the material, with no external information added.

inDrive, in partnership with Pony.ai and NVIDIA, plans to launch autonomous taxi trials in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, in the first half of 2027.

Ride-hailing platform inDrive has signed memorandums of understanding with Pony.ai and NVIDIA, planning to launch Gen-7 autonomous taxi trials in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, in the first half of 2027. Initially, these vehicles will be equipped with safety drivers, with the ultimate goal of achieving fully driverless operation; NVIDIA will provide AI technology support, including the Hyperion platform and the Halos safety system.

GTC Berlin 2026: Jensen Huang’s keynote comprehensively unveils the AI factory, security agents, and Europe’s AI ecosystem strategy.

At the GTC Berlin 2026 conference held at Berlin’s Tempodrom, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang unveiled several key advancements: the DSX POD modular AI factory, the Vera Rubin full-stack AI agent platform, the OpenShell security architecture, the Agent Knowledge Foundation knowledge layer, and the Agile ONE SN humanoid robot reference platform. He also announced a European AI investment commitment exceeding €10 billion, spanning more than 12,000 partners, while emphasizing that Europe is accelerating the development of an independent, controllable AI economic infrastructure.

NVIDIA launches SimReady Central: an open-source, simulation-ready 3D asset library for robotics and AI factories.

NVIDIA, in collaboration with Hugging Face, has launched SimReady Central, a free and open-source simulation-ready (SimReady) 3D asset library built on OpenUSD. The initial release includes over 2,000 validated industrial-grade assets, covering robot bodies, end-effectors, AI factory infrastructure, and more, enabling developers to rapidly build physics-based AI training environments and digital twin scenarios.

Microduck open-source bipedal robot supports both simulation training and real-world deployment: NVIDIA Isaac Lab 3.0 enables a Sim-to-Real closed loop.

Pollen Robotics and Hugging Face have jointly unveiled Microduck, a low-cost, open-source bipedal robot, integrating NVIDIA Isaac Lab 3.0 and the Newton physics engine. It supports training walking policies in GPU-accelerated parallel simulations, with domain randomization and high-fidelity actuator modeling—including backlash, latency, and friction—enhancing robustness during simulation-to-real transfer. The resulting ONNX model can be directly deployed on the physical robot.

Differences in AI industry penetration reveal the true pace of technology diffusion: non-tech industries are entering a critical preparatory phase.

MIT Technology Review, citing TripleTen’s 2026 research, notes that AI adoption across industries is not a matter of “early adopters versus laggards,” but rather follows a natural timeline of technological diffusion: technology and finance lead the way in validating toolchains and workflows, while compliance‑driven, human‑centric sectors such as healthcare and education, though currently at lower adoption rates (e.g., only 18% of healthcare organizations are required to use AI chatbots), are gaining a valuable window of opportunity to systematically identify high‑value skills—such as AI output validation and prompt engineering—and proactively build relevant capabilities.

NVIDIA releases Cosmos3-H-Dreams: the first real-time generative surgical simulator based on clinical videos of actual cholecystectomies.

NVIDIA has launched Cosmos3-H-Dreams, the first real-time generative surgical simulator trained on clinical cholecystectomy videos and robotic kinematics data. It supports interactive, low-latency visual simulation based on motions captured via the Versius surgical robot platform and runs on a single RTX PRO 6000 GPU.

IMF Bangkok Conference Speech Sparks Heated Debate: Former Co-Founders of OpenAI and Anthropic Claim “The Singularity Has Already Begun”

On October 17, 2026, a former OpenAI employee and co-founder of Anthropic delivered a speech at the IMF conference in Bangkok, arguing that “the technological singularity has already begun,” citing AI systems’ demonstrated capacity for autonomous research in fields such as mathematics, biology, physics, and robotics. The data cited—such as TheoPhysEval’s 98% score and Humanity’s Last Exam rising to 67.7%—were sourced from the speaker himself and affiliated institutions, with no third-party verification. The speech underscored the AI-driven transformation of scientific paradigms and its economic implications, while explicitly stating that this assessment reflects a subjective viewpoint rather than a scientific consensus.

Dyna-2: General Purpose Physical Agents with Hour-Long Autonomy — Jason Ma, Dyna Robotics

Our first robotics pod with Dyna’s Chief Scientist on their big bet on World Action Models & the Next Frontier of Physical AI

Gemini 4 Argon for Robotics

Gemini 4 Argon for Robotics

Gemini Robotics 2 brings whole body intelligence to robots

Gemini Robotics 2 brings whole body intelligence to robots

Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6: Powering real-world robotics tasks through enhanced embodied reasoning

Gemini Robotics ER 1.6: Enhancing spatial reasoning and multi-view understanding for autonomous robotics.