Nvidia reportedly agrees to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion in major AI bet

Nvidia has reportedly agreed to acquire artificial intelligence platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, in what would rank among the chipmaker’s largest acquisitions and significantly expand its influence across the open-source AI ecosystem.

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The deal was first reported by The Information, which cited a person familiar with the matter. Reuters also reported the agreement, noting that neither Nvidia nor Hugging Face immediately responded to requests for comment.

If completed, the acquisition would give Nvidia control of one of the most important platforms for developers building and sharing open-source AI models, datasets and machine learning tools.

A major expansion beyond AI chips

Hugging Face has become a central hub for the open-source AI community, offering a repository where developers can access and collaborate on thousands of models and datasets.

For Nvidia, the acquisition would represent a significant expansion beyond its traditional strength in AI computing hardware. The company dominates the market for GPUs used to train and run advanced AI systems, but competition is intensifying as technology companies develop their own chips and AI infrastructure.

Owning Hugging Face could allow Nvidia to strengthen its position further up the AI stack, connecting its hardware and software ecosystem more directly with the developers building the next generation of AI applications.

The reported price also represents a dramatic increase from Hugging Face’s previous valuation. The company was valued at approximately $4.5 billion following a 2023 funding round that included Nvidia, Salesforce and Google among its backers. Nvidia invested $235 million in that round.

Nvidia's AI spending spree continues

The reported acquisition comes as Nvidia continues to deploy enormous amounts of capital to strengthen its position in the rapidly expanding AI market.

In its latest financial outlook, Nvidia forecast revenue growth of roughly 70% for the next fiscal year and said it had committed $18 billion toward equity investments through the remainder of its 2027 fiscal year.

The Hugging Face deal would also mark a notable reversal from earlier discussions between the companies. According to the Financial Times, Hugging Face rejected a $500 million investment proposal from Nvidia last year that would have valued the startup at around $7 billion.

What the deal could mean for open-source AI

The acquisition could reshape the relationship between Nvidia and the open-source AI community.

Hugging Face has positioned itself as a relatively hardware-neutral destination for developers. Bringing the platform under Nvidia's ownership could give the chipmaker greater influence over how open-source models are distributed, deployed and optimized.

At the same time, Nvidia could use Hugging Face's enormous developer ecosystem to accelerate adoption of its AI hardware and software technologies.

For now, however, the transaction remains a reported deal rather than an officially announced acquisition. If finalized, it would underline just how aggressively Nvidia is moving to establish itself across virtually every layer of the AI industry.