Nvidia Buys Hugging Face for $12.9 Billion
Nvidia Buys Hugging Face for $12.9 Billion
The News
Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face, the most popular hosting platform for open-source AI models and datasets, for about $12.9 billion, the companies said Thursday.
The Verge, citing Nvidia's own announcement, put the price at $12.93 billion. Bloomberg, Reuters and the Financial Times reported the deal at roughly $13 billion; The New York Times and Business Insider put it at $12.9 billion.
It is the world's biggest AI chipmaker buying the place where open-source AI developers keep their work.
What Hugging Face Is
Founded in 2016, Hugging Face gives AI developers a place to publish and share models, datasets and tools. It is commonly described as the "GitHub for AI" because of its browsable library of open-source machine learning models and its community features, according to The Verge.
It is not a big money-maker. The Information reported that Hugging Face has recently been generating around $150 million in annualized revenue — a fraction of the purchase price.
Its last official valuation was $4.5 billion, from a 2023 funding round that Nvidia itself took part in.
Timeline
Hugging Face is valued at $4.5 billion in a funding round Nvidia participates in.
The Financial Times reported Hugging Face rejected a $500 million investment offer from Nvidia that would have valued it at $7 billion, over concerns about having a single dominant investor. The FT says the startup turned down the money to preserve its independence.
Business Insider reports Hugging Face is working with a bank to explore a $13 billion sale.
Business Insider reports Nvidia had been in acquisition talks with Hugging Face over the previous week. The Information reports a $12.9 billion deal has already been agreed.
Nvidia and Hugging Face confirm the deal.
Reactions
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that with Hugging Face, the chipmaker will "expand access to AI for developers and institutions worldwide," CNBC reported.
The New York Times framed the purchase as a sign of Nvidia's growing role as Silicon Valley's "central banker" and of its emphasis on open-source technology.
The Verge noted the strategic logic: with closed-source AI providers including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google working on their own chips, buying the main open-source hub gives Nvidia a foothold to defend its hardware dominance.
What's Next
The reporting so far does not spell out a closing date or the regulatory reviews the deal will face. The Verge described the story as still developing.
The immediate question for the AI industry is what happens to Hugging Face's open, vendor-neutral posture now that it is owned by the company selling the chips almost everyone in AI runs on.
More
The price tag is nearly three times Hugging Face's last public valuation and roughly 86 times its reported annualized revenue. Nvidia, the world's most valuable public company, has been spending heavily across the AI stack this year.
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