Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face, the leading open-source AI model repository often described as the 'GitHub of AI,' for $12.93 billion. The deal, confirmed after weeks of speculation, brings together the world's dominant AI chipmaker with a platform used by over 18 million developers to share more than three million models, half a million datasets and one million applications.
In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sought to allay fears that the platform's neutrality might be compromised. 'Hugging Face will remain an open platform for the entire AI ecosystem,' he wrote. 'Nvidia compute will not be required to build on or deploy through Hugging Face.' He also noted the platform would continue supporting multiple clouds and accelerators, as well as open-source and open-weight models from across the ecosystem.
Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue, who co-founded the company in 2016, addressed the community on X. 'Thanks to the community, we've shown that [open-source AI] can be a complement, and even an alternative, to closed-source APIs. But for it to happen at larger scale, it needs more compute, more support, more collaboration and more visibility. That's why we went to talk to Jensen, who offered to do exactly that with us,' he said.
The acquisition gives Nvidia a strategic foothold at the developer and model distribution layer of the AI stack. Forrester Research principal analyst Charlie Dai noted that 'Hugging Face will give it a stronger position at the developer, model distribution, and community layers, which will strategically help to shape where AI workloads are built and deployed.' He cautioned enterprises to watch for future shifts in openness, as risk assessment around deeper Nvidia integration 'will be necessary over time.'
Concerns have also been raised about the financial concentration of the AI ecosystem. Nigel Green, CEO of financial consultants deVere Group, described much of the US AI trade as 'dangerously circular,' with capital moving between a tight circle of suppliers, lenders and customers.
Hugging Face had raised over $395 million in funding to date, including a $235 million round in 2023 led by Salesforce Ventures with participation from Google, Amazon, IBM — and Nvidia itself. Last month, The Information reported the company was generating approximately $150 million in annualized revenue, and in a July interview Delangue said the growth rate was bringing the platform 'close to profitability.'