SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia has revealed its plan to acquire Hugging Face in a definitive agreement valued at $12.93 billion, announced on Thursday. The deal 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 transaction includes up to about $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for employees joining Nvidia. The closing of this deal is anticipated in the first half of 2027, contingent upon the approval of relevant regulatory bodies.
Hugging Face operates a popular platform that facilitates the development, sharing, and deployment of artificial intelligence models, datasets, and applications. Nvidia stated that more than 18 million developers, researchers, and creators utilize this platform. It hosts over 3 million models, 500,000 datasets, and 1 million applications. Over 200,000 companies leverage Hugging Face’s services for discovering, assessing, customizing, and deploying AI systems. The platform has established itself as a central hub for open-source and open-weight AI development.
Nvidia emphasized that Hugging Face will remain accessible to developers working with various models, frameworks, cloud providers, and computing platforms. Hardware from Nvidia will not become a requirement for building or deploying through the platform. Hugging Face will continue supporting open-source and open-weight models from diverse developers. Nvidia confirmed that Hugging Face will maintain support for multiple cloud services and hardware accelerators, including ongoing access for developers using hardware supplied by other semiconductor manufacturers.
Deal Ensures Hugging Face’s Open Platform Will Persist
Founded in 2016 by French entrepreneurs Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond, and Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face developed software libraries alongside its model and dataset hosting services. During its last disclosed funding round in August 2023, the company was valued at $4.5 billion, raising $235 million from technology investors. Prior to the acquisition, Nvidia and Hugging Face had collaborated on projects that allowed developers to access Nvidia’s computing infrastructure through familiar Hugging Face tools.
Nvidia disclosed the binding agreement in a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 3, confirming that the acquisition has not yet been finalized. The deal’s completion depends on standard closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Nvidia also reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining Hugging Face’s open platform according to current practices. This includes support for uploading and downloading selected models and datasets, as well as continued backing for hardware from other silicon vendors.
Regulatory Clearance Needed Before Finalization
Nvidia has already established a significant presence on the Hugging Face platform through its open AI models and tools. The company claims to have published over 500 models and more than 250 open datasets there. It also develops libraries and tools that developers can modify and build upon. Hugging Face serves as infrastructure for researchers, companies, and independent developers working with AI, offering model hosting, datasets, software tools, and cloud resources for creating and deploying AI applications.
The $12.93 billion Nvidia-Hugging Face transaction remains pending until the necessary closing conditions are met. Nvidia stated that Hugging Face will continue to support models from across the AI landscape following the deal’s completion. Developers will retain the flexibility to choose models, frameworks, cloud services, inference providers, and computing platforms under the existing commitments. The platform will also keep supporting multi-cloud and multi-accelerator deployment. Nvidia projects that the transaction will conclude during the first half of 2027 once all regulatory approvals are obtained.