Nvidia may have acquired the AI platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion.

At the end of 2025, the Hugging Face platform had rejected a $500 million investment proposal from Nvidia, fearing that such a powerful investor could influence its decisions in the future. Today, The Information reports that Hugging Face has been acquired by Nvidia for $12.9 billion.Even though this acquisition has not yet been confirmed, the platform’s wild summer does not seem to be over yet.

Nvidia would have acquired Hugging Face for $12.9 billion

According to media outlet The Information, Nvidia acquired the Hugging Face platform for an amount of $12.9 billion. Business Insider, for its part, states that no definitive agreement has been reached at this stage. Neither Nvidia nor Hugging Face has commented on the report. For reference, Hugging Face was founded in 2016 by three French people: Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond, and Thomas Wolf. This platform, which specializes in artificial intelligence, mainly enables researchers, developers, and businesses to share, discover, and use AI models, including open-source ones. It notably hosts models capable of generating text, understanding images, translating languages, and creating audio content.

In 2023, during its latest funding round, Hugging Face was valued at $4.5 billion. If this acquisition is confirmed, Nvidia would therefore have put on the table an amount nearly three times higher than the valuation set in 2023. Hugging Face has grown considerably over the past three years, with the number of hosted models notably rising from 450,000 at the end of 2023 to 3 million in August 2026, while consolidating its position as central infrastructure for open-source AI.For its part, Nvidia continued to see its revenue skyrocket thanks to the development of artificial intelligence, even though Samsung managed to overtake it in the second quarter of 2026. In reality, $12.9 billion represents a relatively modest amount for Nvidia.

Why Nvidia wants to acquire Hugging Face

Saying that competition in the market for chips dedicated to AI is intensifying is an understatement. Google, Samsung, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceXAI are now developing their own AI chips or accelerators. And these are just a few examples. Even though Nvidia remains the market leader for the time being, the competition is real, and it does not seem to be joking.

Nvidia is aware of this and is now seeking to diversify its activities in AI, notably by strengthening its presence in cloud computing and AI-related services, with the acquisition of Hugging Face. Moreover, this acquisition would allow Nvidia to strengthen its grip on the AI software ecosystem. By taking control of an essential open-source AI platform, Nvidia could thus get closer to developers and promote the use of its own technologies, beyond just its chips.There is now one question: if this acquisition is confirmed, will the Hugging Face platform be able to retain its independence and neutrality under Nvidia’s aegis?

In 2025, when Nvidia proposed a $500 million investment, Hugging Face’s fears that an American giant would influence its future decisions were not unfounded. Seeing a fast-growing French platform now potentially come under the control of an American group such as Nvidia inevitably raises questions of digital sovereignty. If this acquisition is confirmed, the Hugging Face platform is expected to remain French, but under whose influence?

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Source: The Information