Nvidia to acquire Hugging Face for $13B in landmark open-source AI deal

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face, the platform that has become the default hub for sharing and deploying open-source AI models, in a deal valued at approximately $12.9 billion. The transaction, which includes an $11.9 billion purchase price and up to $1 billion in equity-based retention packages for Hugging Face employees, marks one of the largest acquisitions in the AI infrastructure space to date. The definitive agreement was signed on September 2, 2026, following initial reports of talks surfacing in late August. If regulators give the green light, the deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027. What Nvidia is actually buying Hugging Face, founded in 2016, has quietly become one of the most important pieces of plumbing in the AI industry. The platform hosts more than 3 million models and serves a community of over 13 million users, making it the central clearinghouse for open-source AI development. The company’s revenue trajectory tells a compelling story about just how quickly this market is expanding. Hugging Face’s annualized revenue climbed to roughly $150 million, up from approximately $100 million just two months earlier. That kind of growth rate in a sho...