SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion in a definitive transaction announced Thursday, with the companies signing the agreement on September 2, 2026. Nvidia will pay approximately $11.9 billion to Hugging Face stockholders, subject to certain adjustments, and the deal includes up to about $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for new Nvidia employees. The transaction is expected to finalize in the first half of 2027, pending necessary regulatory approvals.
Hugging Face manages a popular platform for creating, sharing, and deploying AI models, datasets, and applications, with over 18 million developers, researchers, and creators utilizing it, according to Nvidia. The platform hosts more than 3 million models, 500,000 datasets, and 1 million applications, and over 200,000 companies rely on its services for AI system discovery, evaluation, customization, and deployment. It has become a central hub for open-source and open-weight AI development.
Nvidia stated that Hugging Face will continue to support developers working with various models, frameworks, cloud providers, and computing platforms, emphasizing that Nvidia hardware will not be mandatory for building or deploying models through the platform. Additionally, Hugging Face will maintain its commitment to supporting open-source and open-weight models from different developers, ensuring continued compatibility with multiple cloud services and accelerator platforms, including hardware from other semiconductor manufacturers.
Deal safeguards Hugging Face’s open ecosystem
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 tech investors. Prior to the acquisition, Nvidia and Hugging Face collaborated on projects that provided developers with access to Nvidia’s computing infrastructure via 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 deal has not yet closed. Finalization depends on standard closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Nvidia also reaffirmed its commitment to keep Hugging Face’s platform open, allowing uploads and downloads of selected models and datasets, and supporting other silicon vendors beyond Nvidia.
Approval process remains before deal closure
Already active on the Hugging Face platform through its open AI releases, Nvidia has published over 500 models and more than 250 open datasets, along with developing libraries and tools for developers to utilize, modify, and extend. Hugging Face offers infrastructure for AI researchers, companies, and independent developers, covering model hosting, datasets, software tools, and cloud resources for building and deploying AI applications.
The $12.93 billion Nvidia-Hugging Face acquisition remains pending until the necessary closing conditions are met. Nvidia has assured that post-completion, Hugging Face will continue supporting models across the AI ecosystem, with developers retaining their choices of models, frameworks, cloud providers, inference services, and computing platforms. The platform will also uphold multi-cloud and multi-accelerator development and deployment, with Nvidia anticipating the deal will conclude in the first half of 2027 after securing regulatory approval.