SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia is set to acquire Hugging Face in a deal valued at $12.93 billion, with the announcement made on Thursday. The agreement was signed on September 2, 2026, with Nvidia planning to pay approximately $11.9 billion to Hugging Face shareholders, subject to certain adjustments. Additionally, the deal includes up to around $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for employees who will join Nvidia. The transaction is anticipated to close in the first half of 2027, pending regulatory approval.
Hugging Face is known for its extensive platform that enables development, sharing, and deployment of AI models, datasets, and applications. Nvidia reports that the platform is used by over 18 million developers, researchers, and creators. It hosts more than 3 million models, 500,000 datasets, and 1 million applications. Over 200,000 companies utilize its services to find, evaluate, customize, and deploy AI solutions. The platform has established itself as a leading hub for open-source and open-weight AI development.
Nvidia emphasized that Hugging Face will remain open 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 company also reaffirmed ongoing support for open-source and open-weight models from multiple developers. Nvidia stated that Hugging Face will continue supporting multiple cloud services and accelerator platforms, maintaining access for developers using hardware supplied by 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 initially developed software libraries alongside its model and dataset hosting services. During its last publicly 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 provided developers with access to Nvidia’s computing infrastructure through familiar Hugging Face tools.
Nvidia disclosed the definitive agreement through a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 3. The filing confirms that the deal has not yet been finalized, as it awaits the fulfillment of usual closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Nvidia also reaffirmed its commitment to keep the Hugging Face platform open under its current practices, allowing users to upload and download specific models and datasets. The agreement also includes ongoing support for silicon vendors other than Nvidia.
Regulatory clearance still pending before finalization
Nvidia already maintains a strong presence on the Hugging Face platform through its open AI releases, publishing more than 500 models and over 250 open datasets there. The company also develops libraries and tools that users can modify and build upon. Hugging Face offers infrastructure for researchers, companies, and independent developers working with artificial intelligence, including model hosting, datasets, software tools, and cloud-based resources for building and deploying AI applications.
The planned $12.93 billion Nvidia-Hugging Face acquisition remains pending until all closing conditions are met. Nvidia has stated that Hugging Face will continue supporting models from across the AI ecosystem after the deal’s completion. Developers will retain their options regarding models, frameworks, clouds, inference providers, and computing platforms, in accordance with the announced commitments. Support for multi-cloud and multi-accelerator deployment will persist, with Nvidia expecting the transaction to finalize during the first half of 2027 after obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals.