SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia has reached an agreement to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, as announced in a definitive transaction on Thursday. The deal was officially signed on September 2, 2026, with Nvidia expected 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 closure of the deal is anticipated in the first half of 2027, pending the necessary regulatory approvals.
Hugging Face offers a popular platform for creating, sharing, and deploying artificial intelligence models, datasets, and applications. Nvidia reported that more than 18 million developers, researchers, and creators utilize the platform. It hosts over 3 million models, 500,000 datasets, and 1 million applications, while more than 200,000 companies leverage its services to discover, evaluate, customize, and deploy AI systems. The platform has become a central hub for open-source and open-weight AI development initiatives.
Nvidia emphasized that Hugging Face will continue to be accessible to developers working with various models, frameworks, cloud providers, and computing platforms. Hardware from Nvidia will not be mandatory for building or deploying through Hugging Face. The platform will also persist in supporting open-source and open-weight models from different developers. Nvidia assured that Hugging Face will uphold support for multiple cloud services and accelerator platforms, including ongoing access for developers utilizing hardware from other semiconductor firms.
Deal safeguards Hugging Face’s open platform principles
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 after raising $235 million from technology investors. Prior to the acquisition agreement, Nvidia and Hugging Face collaborated on projects that enabled developers to access Nvidia’s computing infrastructure using familiar Hugging Face tools.
Nvidia disclosed the definitive agreement via 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 usual closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Nvidia also reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining Hugging Face’s open platform practices, including the ability to upload and download selected models and datasets. The commitment extends to supporting silicon vendors other than Nvidia.
Regulatory review pending before the deal’s finalization
Already, Nvidia maintains a significant presence on Hugging Face through its open AI initiatives, publishing over 500 models and more than 250 open datasets. The company also develops libraries and tools that users can modify and extend. Hugging Face provides infrastructure to researchers, businesses, and independent developers engaged with AI, offering services such as model hosting, datasets, software tools, and cloud resources for building and deploying AI applications.
The acquisition of Hugging Face by Nvidia, valued at $12.93 billion, remains pending until all closing conditions are met. Nvidia stated that Hugging Face will continue supporting models across the entire AI ecosystem after the deal’s completion. Developers will retain their options regarding models, frameworks, cloud providers, inference options, and computing platforms, in line with the announced commitments. Furthermore, Hugging Face will persist in supporting multi-cloud and multi-accelerator deployment and development. Nvidia projects that the transaction will finalize in the first half of 2027 after obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals.