Nvidia Acquires Hugging Face for $12.9 Billion in Major AI Platform Deal

Nvidia has confirmed its acquisition of Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, bringing together the leading AI chip company’s computing platform with one of the largest open-source artificial intelligence communities.

The deal gives Nvidia control of a platform that hosts more than three million AI models, one million applications, and 500,000 datasets used by developers building and deploying machine learning systems.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Hugging Face will remain an open platform, allowing developers to choose their preferred models, frameworks, cloud providers, inference services, and computing platforms. Huang said developers will not be required to use Nvidia hardware to build or deploy through Hugging Face.

Nvidia expands its open AI ecosystem.

Huang highlighted Nvidia’s existing contributions to Hugging Face, noting that the company has released more than 500 models and 250 open datasets on the platform. He said Nvidia develops open models to encourage wider adoption among developers worldwide.

For Nvidia, the acquisition strengthens its position across the AI development ecosystem. The company already dominates AI computing hardware, and combining its infrastructure with Hugging Face’s developer platform could provide enterprises with integrated access to AI models and computing resources.

Hugging Face was founded in 2016 and has raised more than $395 million in funding. Its most recent funding round took place in 2023, when the company raised $235 million from investors including Salesforce Ventures, Google, Amazon, IBM, and Nvidia.

Hugging Face continues focus on open models

Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue said in a post on X that the company’s partnership with Nvidia will provide additional computing resources, support, collaboration, and visibility while maintaining its role as an alternative to closed-source AI.

The company has grown rapidly as more AI models become available through its platform. The Financial Times reported that Hugging Face previously rejected a $500 million acquisition offer from Nvidia, while The Information reported that the company reached $150 million in annualised revenue.

Nvidia pushes open-weight AI development.

Nvidia has increasingly promoted open-weight AI models as part of its broader AI strategy. Huang has argued that open models are important in areas such as cybersecurity and AI development, and Nvidia has supported efforts to expand access to open AI systems through its open-weight AI initiative.

The company has also invested heavily in AI model development. The Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia reached a $6 billion deal with coding startup Poolside to develop open models.

Delangue previously said that Nvidia’s open model helped Hugging Face respond to cyberattacks after proprietary models failed to protect the platform. He shared the update in another post on X.