Nvidia Agrees to Buy Hugging Face for $12.93 Billion

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, one of the chipmaker's largest acquisitions as it expands beyond AI chips and deeper into the software and developer ecosystem surrounding artificial intelligence.

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face in a $12.93-billion deal aimed at expanding the chipmaker's presence in open AI models and developer tools. [Image: Hugging Face X]

Hugging Face, founded in 2016, operates a widely used platform where developers, researchers and companies can share, discover, customize and deploy AI models, datasets and applications.

Nvidia said more than 18 million developers, researchers and creators use the platform, while more than 200,000 companies use it.

Under the agreement, Nvidia will pay approximately $11.9 billion to Hugging Face shareholders, with an additional equity-based retention program worth up to about $1 billion for employees joining Nvidia.

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

The deal underscores Nvidia's growing interest in open and open-weight AI models, which are increasingly being used by developers and businesses as alternatives to proprietary systems.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Hugging Face would remain an open platform after the acquisition.

The company has committed to allowing developers to choose their preferred models, frameworks, cloud providers and computing platforms rather than requiring Nvidia hardware.

Hugging Face currently hosts more than 3 million models, 500,000 datasets and 1 million applications, according to Nvidia.

The acquisition also comes as major Nvidia customers, including Microsoft, Meta and other technology companies, invest in developing their own AI chips.

Nvidia's expansion into AI software, infrastructure and developer tools could help diversify its business as the industry becomes more competitive.

For Hugging Face, the transaction provides access to Nvidia's considerable financial and computing resources while allowing the platform to maintain its open ecosystem.