Nvidia has agreed to acquire open-source artificial intelligence platform Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, in a deal that gives the chipmaker a powerful position at the centre of the fast-growing open-model ecosystem.
The transaction, announced on Thursday, values Hugging Face at a substantial premium to its current business. The company generates about $150 million in annualised revenue, according to the source material, while its platform is used by more than 18 million developers, researchers and creators.
Hugging Face hosts more than three million models, 500,000 datasets and one million applications. More than 200,000 companies use the platform to discover, assess, customise and deploy artificial intelligence tools.
Nvidia’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission said the deal includes about $11.9 billion payable to Hugging Face shareholders, alongside an equity-based retention programme worth up to approximately $1 billion for employees who join Nvidia. The acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approval and other customary conditions. ([sec.gov](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581026000078/nvda-20260902.htm?utm_source=openai))
Nvidia promises to keep Hugging Face open
Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, said Hugging Face would continue operating as an open platform for the wider artificial intelligence industry.
“Developers will choose the models they want, the frameworks they want, the clouds and inference service providers they want and the computing platforms they want,” Mr Huang said in a company blog post. “Nvidia compute will not be required to build on or deploy through Hugging Face.” ([blogs.nvidia.com](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-to-acquire-hugging-face/?utm_source=openai))
Nvidia has also committed to allowing the platform to continue supporting other chip suppliers, as well as the uploading and downloading of models and datasets selected by users. The pledge is significant because Nvidia is the dominant supplier of the advanced processors used to train and run many of the world’s leading AI systems. ([sec.gov](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581026000078/nvda-20260902.htm?utm_source=openai))
The agreement will bring Hugging Face, founded a decade ago, under the ownership of one of the most valuable technology companies in the world. Its platform has become a central meeting point for developers working with open-source and open-weight models, which can be adapted and deployed by organisations rather than accessed only through the systems of a small number of AI companies.
That market is increasingly challenging the closed models offered by companies including OpenAI and Anthropic. For Nvidia, the acquisition extends its reach beyond the manufacture of chips into the software, developer tools and communities that determine how those chips are used.
The price also reflects the scarcity of platforms with Hugging Face’s scale and influence. Hugging Face was valued at $4.5 billion in its most recent major funding round, in 2023, according to Axios.
The deal is Nvidia’s second-largest acquisition, behind its approximately $20 billion agreement for the licensing and talent assets of AI chip start-up Groq in December, according to the source material.
It follows a broader spending and investment drive by Nvidia, fuelled by the enormous cash flows generated by demand for its data-centre processors. On the company’s August 26 earnings call, chief financial officer Colette Kress said Nvidia had invested almost $50 billion in AI laboratories developing advanced models, describing the sum as a meaningful commitment but a small proportion of its expected free cash flow.
By acquiring Hugging Face, Nvidia is betting that the next stage of the AI race will be fought not only over computing power, but also over the platforms where models are created, shared and deployed.
