SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia has announced its intention to purchase Hugging Face for $12.93 billion through a definitive agreement disclosed Thursday. The companies finalized the deal on September 2, 2026. Nvidia will pay approximately $11.9 billion to Hugging Face shareholders, subject to certain adjustments. Additionally, the agreement includes up to about $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for employees joining Nvidia. The transaction is anticipated to complete in the first half of 2027, pending necessary regulatory approvals.
Hugging Face is known for its popular platform that enables the development, sharing, and deployment of AI models, datasets, and applications. Nvidia reports 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 used by more than 200,000 companies for discovering, evaluating, customizing, and deploying AI systems. The platform has become 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 be mandated for building or deploying projects on Hugging Face. The platform will continue supporting open-source and open-weight models from different developers. Nvidia also confirmed that Hugging Face will sustain support for multiple cloud services and accelerator platforms, including ongoing access for developers using hardware supplied by other semiconductor companies.
Agreement safeguards Hugging Face’s open platform
French entrepreneurs Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond, and Thomas Wolf established Hugging Face in 2016. The firm has developed software libraries alongside its model and dataset hosting services. During its last disclosed funding round in August 2023, Hugging Face was valued at $4.5 billion, raising $235 million from tech investors. Prior to the acquisition, Nvidia and Hugging Face collaborated on projects that allowed developers to access Nvidia computing infrastructure using familiar Hugging Face tools.
Nvidia revealed the definitive agreement 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. Finalization depends on standard closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Nvidia also committed to maintaining the open nature of the Hugging Face platform under its existing practices. These commitments include support for uploading and downloading specific models and datasets, as well as ongoing backing for hardware from vendors other than Nvidia.
Regulatory approvals needed before closing
Nvidia has already established a significant presence on the Hugging Face platform through its open AI releases, publishing over 500 models and more than 250 open datasets there. The company also offers libraries and tools that developers can modify and build upon. Hugging Face provides infrastructure for researchers, companies, and independent developers working with AI, including model hosting, datasets, software tools, and cloud resources for building and deploying AI applications.
The $12.93 billion Nvidia-Hugging Face deal remains pending until all closing conditions are met. Nvidia has stated that Hugging Face will continue supporting models from across the AI industry after the acquisition concludes. Developers will retain their choices of models, frameworks, cloud providers, inference services, and computing platforms under the commitments. The platform will also sustain support for multi-cloud and multi-accelerator development and deployment. Nvidia expects the transaction to close during the first half of 2027 once regulatory approvals are granted.