NvidiaAug 28, 20263 mins read

Nvidia’s $12.9B Hugging Face Deal Signals a Bigger Bet on Open AI

Nvidia is acquiring Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, according to The Decoder, as major closed AI labs reduce reliance on Nvidia hardware and pursue custom chips.

The Decoder

Nvidia snaps up Hugging Face for $12.9 billion as closed AI labs pull away

The Deal: Nvidia Moves to Acquire Hugging Face

Nvidia is acquiring open-source AI platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, according to the report. Hugging Face hosts open AI models and offers cloud services, making it a key developer-facing platform in the open AI ecosystem.

The reported price is about 80 times Hugging Face’s annual revenue of roughly $150 million. The company has led its space for ten years and was described by CEO Clem Delangue as being “close to profitability.”

Why Hugging Face Fits Nvidia’s Open AI Push

The acquisition aligns with Nvidia’s previously stated plan to commit $26 billion over five years to develop open-source AI models. Owning Hugging Face could give Nvidia a direct channel into the open-weight model ecosystem and the developers who use it.

The Decoder notes that Nvidia could scale Hugging Face’s cloud business and position it as a kind of OpenRouter for open-weight models. That would also create a clearer reason for more AI workloads to run on Nvidia chips.

Closed AI Labs Are Reducing Hardware Dependence

The report frames the deal against a wider shift: closed providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic are reducing their dependence on Nvidia hardware. OpenAI is building custom chips with Broadcom, signed a billion-dollar deal with chip startup Cerebras, and secured access to AMD chips.

Anthropic is also developing its own AI chip, while Google has been doing the same for some time. For Nvidia, expanding its role in open AI could help offset pressure from large AI labs that increasingly want more control over their hardware stack.

What Readers Should Watch Next

The biggest question is how Nvidia would integrate Hugging Face’s model hosting, developer community, and cloud services into its broader AI strategy. If the platform remains attractive to developers, it could become a stronger distribution layer for open AI models.

Watch for how Nvidia positions Hugging Face’s cloud offering, whether open-weight model access expands, and how developers respond to the platform’s new ownership. The strategic takeaway is clear: Nvidia is looking beyond chips and deeper into the AI software and model ecosystem.