Nvidia reportedly in talks to buy AI model hub Hugging Face for $13 billion
Nvidia is negotiating a purchase of Hugging Face, the leading repository for open-weight AI models, in a deal valued at roughly $13 billion, though the transaction has not yet been finalized.
Nvidia is said to be advancing a $12.9 billion acquisition of Hugging Face, the cloud platform that hosts and distributes open-weight artificial-intelligence models. The deal, reported by The Information and confirmed by a source speaking to CNBC, is still under negotiation and could still encounter obstacles.
Hugging Face, founded in 2016, functions as a repository where developers and researchers locate, download, fine-tune and share AI models, a role comparable to GitHub for software code. The company has attracted interest from several potential buyers, including Salesforce, and has previously received investments from Nvidia, Google and Microsoft.
If completed, the purchase would give Nvidia deeper access to the open-model ecosystem, complementing its own open-model offerings such as the Nemotron series. Analysts note that the platform is not yet profitable but is considered strategically important because it serves as the primary hub for storing and exchanging open-weight models.
Nvidia has faced challenges launching its own cloud AI services, and the acquisition could revive those plans. It may also strengthen Nvidia’s position with AI labs that are developing proprietary hardware to reduce reliance on Nvidia’s GPUs.
"Open-weight models are essential for a competitive AI landscape," a Nvidia spokesperson said, emphasizing the company’s support for open models as alternatives to closed-source offerings.
Hugging Face’s expanding focus on models used in robotics and other physical-AI applications aligns with Nvidia’s leadership in those markets, suggesting potential synergies beyond the core language-model business.