Nvidia has reportedly agreed to acquire Hugging Face for EUR 11 billion, according to a source familiar with the discussions. Separate reporting values the potential transaction at more than EUR 11 billion but notes that the talks have not yet resulted in a signed agreement and could still fall apart before completion.
Both companies were contacted for comment, and neither has responded. Nvidia’s lack of a public statement stands out, given that the company has historically moved quickly to push back against reports it views as inaccurate.
Founded in 2016, Hugging Face is one of the most widely used platforms where developers share and download open-source AI models. Acquiring it would give Nvidia a significant position in the open-source AI space at a moment when open-source developers are working to close the gap with closed systems from companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
Why Nvidia Wants an Open-Source Foothold
The strategic logic centers on protecting Nvidia’s dominance in AI chips, which faces growing competitive pressure despite the company’s rapid release cadence. Major closed-source AI labs, including OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and Anthropic, are all developing their own chips to reduce dependence on Nvidia hardware.
A robust ecosystem of open-source models gives customers alternatives to those closed labs, which in turn keeps more of the market reliant on Nvidia’s hardware. That reasoning also helps explain why Nvidia has already invested tens of billions of dollars into building its own open-source AI models.
Hugging Face’s shift away from independence is not entirely unexpected. CEO Clem Delangue has spent much of this year publicly aligned with Nvidia’s open-source efforts, amid an ongoing debate over whether Washington should restrict open-weight models. Chinese labs such as Moonshot AI released systems, including its Kimi K3 model, that matched leading U.S. models on benchmarks at far lower operating costs, fueling competitive and national-security concerns among U.S. officials. Some critics of closed labs, including White House adviser David Sacks, argued those fears were being amplified by the “duopoly” of Anthropic and OpenAI.
Delangue’s Public Push and Nvidia’s Cloud Return
In an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” earlier this month, Delangue said Hugging Face used an Nvidia-modified version of a Chinese open-source model to defend itself following a cyberattack. He also referenced a recent letter signed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and 24 other companies, including Hugging Face, urging the U.S. government to support open models rather than restrict them. In a late-July CNBC interview, Delangue made similar arguments, citing the same letter and warning that China is “clearly dominating” open-source AI.
The deal would also represent a return to cloud computing for Nvidia. The company reportedly scaled back its own cloud offering, DGX Cloud, roughly a year ago. Owning Hugging Face, which already helps developers run AI models, would give Nvidia renewed infrastructure in that market.
The reported acquisition would value Hugging Face at EUR 11
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Image: techcrunch.com
