Nvidia has agreed to acquire AI platform Hugging Face for about $12.9 billion, according to a report from The Information.
The deal, if completed, would rank among Nvidia’s largest acquisitions and give the chipmaker control of one of the most popular hubs for open-source AI models and datasets. Hugging Face functions as a central place where developers share, download, and build with open-source large language models.
Business Insider reported separately that Nvidia has been in acquisition talks valuing Hugging Face at more than $13 billion, but said a final agreement has not yet been signed and the discussions could still fall apart. Neither Nvidia nor Hugging Face has publicly confirmed the deal.
Hugging Face was last valued at $4.5 billion in a 2023 funding round that raised $235 million. Investors in that round included Salesforce, Google’s GV, IBM, and Nvidia itself. Late last year, Hugging Face rejected a $500 million investment offer from Nvidia that would have valued the company at around $7 billion. The company preferred to avoid a single dominant investor that could influence its decisions.
The platform is currently generating about $150 million in annualized revenue and has been approaching profitability. The sharp rise in valuation reflects strong growth in open-source AI and Hugging Face’s central role in the developer community.
For Nvidia, the acquisition would expand its reach beyond hardware into the software and model ecosystem. Open-source models often run more cheaply and can be customized more easily than closed systems from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Those firms are also developing their own custom chips to reduce dependence on Nvidia’s GPUs.
Buying Hugging Face would strengthen Nvidia’s position at a time when demand for AI infrastructure remains high and competition across the full AI stack is intensifying.
The reported deal is one of the most closely watched AI transactions of 2026.
Reference links
- https://www.reuters.com/technology/nvidia-talks-acquire-hugging-face-13-billion-deal-business-insider-reports-2026-08-27/
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/26/nvidia-closes-in-on-hugging-face-acquisition/
- https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-in-talks-to-buy-hugging-face-13-billion-dollars-2026-8
- https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/nvidia-agrees-buy-hugging-face-12-9-billion
