The Information reported that Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face, the dominant hub for open-source AI models and datasets, for $12.9 billion. Reuters, Forbes, and TechSpot amplified the account. Neither company has publicly confirmed the deal. Business Insider had earlier said talks were serious at a valuation above $13 billion and that Microsoft had also looked at the company.
If the price holds, the transaction would be one of Nvidia’s largest acquisitions, ahead of the $7 billion Mellanox purchase in 2020. Hugging Face last raised at a $4.5 billion valuation in 2023; Nvidia invested $235 million in that round. The Information put Hugging Face’s recent annualized revenue around $150 million, implying a multiple near 86 times sales.
Control of the GitHub of AI would extend Nvidia from GPUs and networking into the layer where developers publish, discover, and deploy models. That is strategically useful as OpenAI and Anthropic build or shop for their own chips. It also raises a neutrality question: can the main merchant of closed silicon credibly host the open-weight commons?
Antitrust review is the obvious next gate. Hugging Face sits at the center of open-model distribution; combining it with the dominant training-chip vendor will invite scrutiny in the United States and Europe even if both boards have already shaken hands.
Key takeaway — Unconfirmed but widely reported: Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, a bet that owning the open-model marketplace is as strategic as selling the GPUs that train those models.
Photo: Unsplash (graphics card / GPU) · Sources: Reuters; The Information; Forbes; TechSpot; SiliconANGLE.
