Lapeyre says that selling humanoid robots remains challenging because the use cases are unclear and the systems are still unreliable—though some companies are starting to find success. Today, the technology is mostly developed by a few well financed companies including Tesla, Figure, and Agility Robotics. “With Hugging Face, we hope to democratize that,” he says.

Many AI models, software frameworks, and tools that researchers and engineers rely on to build AI models and applications are already open source. This means the models are shared free of charge, with licenses that allow the code to be modified and reused. Making hardware open source typically means releasing designs, component details, and 3D models that allow pieces to be manufactured more easily.

The availability of powerful open weight AI models (meaning downloadable but not necessarily fully open source) has made it easier for researchers and startups to experiment with cutting edge AI, as they can see how models work and modify the code. Delangue says that Hugging Face believes something similar is needed in robotics. “Hopefully open source can unleash a wide and diverse range of [new robot] capabilities,” he says.

Lapeyre adds that open sourcing hardware has a similar effect. Robot developers “can [3D] print a part if something is broken,” he says, adding, “if something is not perfect, they can make it a bit better by adding a new part.”

The current AI boom has coincided with renewed interest in robotics, as the latest models help enable new advances in the capabilities of hardware systems. Some prominent researchers argue that AI will need a physical presence in order to match or surpass human intelligence, because that advancement may require a direct understanding of the physical world.

The hype surrounding humanoid robots has led to some dubious claims. Some of the companies racing to build humanoid robots have posted demo videos on social media that seem to promise incredible abilities. But experts warn that such videos could be misleading. A system that seems extraordinary online could in fact be teleoperated by a person off camera; it could also fail if con...