Nvidia has entered the final stages of negotiations to acquire Hugging Face, the New York‑based repository that houses thousands of open‑weight artificial‑intelligence models. Sources familiar with the matter tell The Information that the price tag sits at about $12.9 billion, a figure the companies have treated as a baseline for the transaction.
Hugging Face, founded in 2016, functions much like GitHub does for conventional software. Researchers and developers browse the platform for models that meet specific criteria, download them, fine‑tune the code, and often contribute their own variants back to the community. The service has become a cornerstone for the open‑source AI movement, offering an alternative to the closed‑source models championed by firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
Both parties appear eager to close the deal, according to a CNBC source who confirmed that talks are underway. While the acquisition is not yet finalized, the momentum suggests the companies are aligned on strategic goals. Nvidia’s interest stems from a desire to deepen its integration with the AI ecosystem beyond hardware, leveraging Hugging Face’s extensive model library to enhance its own software offerings.
Hugging Face has fielded interest from other tech giants, most notably Salesforce, which reportedly entered the bidding process. The startup’s earlier funding rounds attracted investments from Nvidia, Google and Microsoft, underscoring its broad appeal across the industry. Nvidia’s prior stake in the company sets the stage for a seamless transition, should the purchase go through.
Industry observers note that Nvidia’s push aligns with its public advocacy for open‑weight models. The chipmaker has recently released its own family of open models, branded Nemotron, positioning itself as a champion of transparent AI development. By bringing Hugging Face under its umbrella, Nvidia could further solidify that stance, offering developers a unified hardware‑software stack.
Regulatory approval remains a hurdle, as with any megadeal of this scale. Analysts caution that antitrust scrutiny could delay or reshape the transaction, but both sides have expressed confidence that the benefits outweigh potential obstacles.
If completed, the acquisition would mark one of the largest AI‑focused deals to date, reflecting the accelerating valuation of data‑centric platforms in the tech sector. It would also give Nvidia a direct line to the thriving community of AI researchers who rely on Hugging Face’s repository, potentially accelerating the development of next‑generation models optimized for Nvidia’s GPUs.
Stakeholders await further details, including the exact terms of the purchase and the timeline for integration. For now, the market views the prospective deal as a strategic win for Nvidia, positioning it at the heart of the open‑source AI movement while offering Hugging Face the resources of a global hardware leader.
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