Jensen Huang’s Nvidia makes a huge open-source AI bet with Hugging Face deal
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Jensen Huang’s Nvidia makes a huge open-source AI bet with Hugging Face deal")
Jensen Huang’s Nvidia makes a huge open-source AI bet with Hugging Face deal
Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion after Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue approached Jensen Huang about a deal. The acquisition gives Nvidia a major open-source AI platform and expands its business beyond chips.
Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, in a major move that takes the chip giant deeper into the software and open-source side of artificial intelligence. But the deal did not begin with Nvidia knocking on Hugging Face’s door.
Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue told CNBC that his company approached Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang first. He said the discussions moved quickly and, just weeks later, the companies had agreed on a deal. Delangue said Hugging Face had reached a “turning point” and needed more resources, scale and visibility.
Why Nvidia wants Hugging Face
Hugging Face has become one of the biggest platforms for developers working with open-source AI models. Its platform lets researchers and developers share, discover and work with AI models, datasets and tools. Nvidia has already worked with Hugging Face, including integrating its DGX Cloud infrastructure with the platform to give developers access to AI supercomputing.
The acquisition therefore gives Nvidia something that its GPUs alone cannot provide: a much deeper connection with the developers building AI models and applications. Nvidia said Hugging Face will remain an open platform for the wider AI ecosystem. Huang said the companies will work to scale its platform, strengthen its infrastructure and expand access to AI for developers and institutions worldwide.
Nvidia is going far beyond chips
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The $12.9 billion deal shows how Nvidia’s ambitions are expanding. The company became the central hardware supplier behind the generative AI boom, but Huang has increasingly positioned Nvidia as a full AI computing platform rather than simply a chipmaker. Nvidia’s latest results show the scale of that business. It reported $96.2 billion in quarterly revenue, with data-centre revenue reaching $89 billion.
Buying Hugging Face takes Nvidia further up the AI stack, closer to the models, developers and software that turn computing power into useful AI products.
A major acquisition for Nvidia
The Hugging Face purchase would rank among Nvidia’s largest acquisitions. The company’s strategy has increasingly involved partnerships and investments across the AI ecosystem, including model developers and infrastructure companies. For Hugging Face, meanwhile, Delangue said Nvidia was a “perfect home” for the company and its open-source community. The deal comes at an important moment for open AI models, as developers increasingly look beyond a small group of closed AI labs. Nvidia now wants to be part of that shift not just by supplying the chips, but by owning a major part of the platform where the next generation of AI developers builds.
