Nvidia Drops $12.93 Billion on Hugging Face

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face, a major platform for open-source AI models, datasets, and applications, for $12.93 billion.

The acquisition gives Nvidia a significant foothold in open-source AI at a time when open models are challenging closed systems from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that Hugging Face will remain open to the broader AI industry, with Nvidia compute not required for building or deploying on the platform.

The deal is Nvidia's second-largest acquisition ever, behind its $20 billion licensing and talent deal for AI chip startup Groq's assets in December.