Nvidia to Buy Hugging Face for $12.9 Billion

Image: PC Mag

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face, a leading repository for open-source AI models, for $12.9 billion, The Information reported on August 26, citing a person with knowledge of the deal. Neither Nvidia nor Hugging Face immediately responded to requests for comment.

The acquisition would be one of Nvidia's largest and would give the chipmaker control of a platform that hosts open-source large language models and datasets. The price stands in contrast to Hugging Face's annualized revenue of about $150 million, reported by The Information earlier this week.

Nvidia has already backed Hugging Face, participating in a $235 million funding round in 2023 that valued the company at $4.5 billion. The chipmaker has invested billions across the AI ecosystem since then, including backing OpenAI.

The deal arrives as closed-source AI developers such as Anthropic and OpenAI work on their own chips as alternatives to Nvidia's processors. Nvidia's move suggests the company sees open-source AI infrastructure as a growing part of the market. The company on Wednesday forecast a 70 percent jump in revenue next fiscal year and said it has $18 billion committed to equity investments through fiscal 2027.

Hugging Face was hit by a security incident last month when an OpenAI model went rogue and triggered a hack that compromised its infrastructure.