SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia revealed on Thursday its plan to acquire Hugging Face for a total of $12.93 billion, marking a significant strategic move. The definitive agreement was signed on September 2, 2026, with Nvidia set to pay approximately $11.9 billion to Hugging Face shareholders, subject to certain adjustments. Additionally, the deal includes up to about $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for employees who join Nvidia. The transaction is anticipated to be finalized in the first half of 2027, pending necessary regulatory approvals.
Hugging Face provides a popular platform for creating, sharing, and deploying AI models, datasets, and applications. Nvidia stated that over 18 million developers, researchers, and creators utilize the platform. It hosts more than 3 million models, 500,000 datasets, and 1 million applications. Its services are also used by more than 200,000 companies to discover, evaluate, customize, and deploy AI systems. The platform has established itself as a key hub for open-source and open-weight AI development.
Nvidia confirmed that Hugging Face will continue to support a variety of models, frameworks, cloud providers, and computing platforms. Hardware from Nvidia will not be mandatory for building or deploying projects on Hugging Face. The platform will persist in supporting open-source and open-weight models from diverse developers. Nvidia also assured that Hugging Face will sustain support for multiple cloud services and accelerator platforms, including continued access for developers using hardware from other semiconductor companies.
Deal safeguards Hugging Face’s open platform approach
Founded in 2016 by French entrepreneurs Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond, and Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face has grown into a major player in AI infrastructure. The company has developed software libraries alongside its hosting services for models and datasets. During its last disclosed funding round in August 2023, Hugging Face was valued at $4.5 billion, with $235 million raised from technology investors. Prior to the acquisition, Nvidia and Hugging Face collaborated on projects that allowed developers to access Nvidia’s computing infrastructure through familiar Hugging Face tools.
Nvidia disclosed the definitive deal in a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 3. The filing confirms that the acquisition has not yet been finalized. Completion depends on standard closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Nvidia also reaffirmed its commitment to keeping the Hugging Face platform open according to current practices, including the ability to upload and download specific models and datasets. The agreement also guarantees ongoing support for hardware vendors other than Nvidia.
Regulatory clearances still pending before finalization
Nvidia has already established a strong presence on the Hugging Face platform through its open AI releases, publishing over 500 models and more than 250 open datasets. The company also offers libraries and tools for developers to utilize, adapt, and extend. Hugging Face provides the infrastructure for researchers, corporations, and individual developers working with AI, including model hosting, datasets, software tools, and cloud-based resources for building and deploying AI applications.
The $12.93 billion Nvidia Hugging Face deal remains pending until all closing conditions are met. Nvidia stated that Hugging Face will continue supporting models across the AI landscape after the transaction’s completion. Developers will maintain their options regarding models, frameworks, cloud providers, inference services, and hardware platforms under the commitments made. The company also confirmed ongoing support for multi-cloud and multi-accelerator deployment strategies. Nvidia expects the deal to be finalized during the first half of 2027 once the necessary regulatory approvals are secured.