Nvidia (NVDA.US) acquires AI platform Hugging Face for $1.3 billion, strengthening its open-source ecosystem布局

According to information obtained by Zhihu Finance APP, NVIDIA (NVDA.US) has agreed to acquire the artificial intelligence startup Hugging Face for a transaction valuation of approximately $13 billion. This price includes up to $1 billion in equity retention plans for Hugging Face employees who join NVIDIA.

The chip giant stated that it will maintain Hugging Face platform's open-source nature, in line with the startup's existing operating model. NVIDIA said in a statement: “Consistent with this commitment, Hugging Face will continue to allow model developers, users, and uploaders to upload and download their chosen models and datasets, and will continue to support other chip suppliers.” Previous reports indicated that NVIDIA could reach an agreement as soon as this week.

This acquisition is the largest initiative yet by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang to expand the adoption of AI and its customer base. The deal gives NVIDIA access to a key platform where developers showcase and share AI models.

Jensen Huang is committed to promoting the so-called open-source model development to prevent a handful of large companies from dominating the AI sector. Some of these companies are currently NVIDIA’s biggest customers, but they are actively advancing their own chip projects.

Jensen Huang posted on X: “Open-source models enhance safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and adoption, and enable sovereign autonomy. NVIDIA will become the ideal home for Hugging Face, its community, and the future of open-source models.”

NVIDIA was already one of Hugging Face’s investors, alongside other backers such as Google under Alphabet, Amazon, Intel, and Salesforce.

Founded in 2016, Hugging Face operates an AI model sharing platform that is freely available for others to use. Three years ago, the startup was valued at $4.5 billion in a financing round.

Hugging Face was previously involved in a cybersecurity incident when a model being tested by OpenAI inadvertently accessed the platform. The vulnerability raised industry concerns about the safety of cutting-edge AI technologies. OpenAI later said it could have acted sooner to prevent attacks on Hugging Face systems.

The acquisition of Hugging Face is the latest in a series of deals by NVIDIA over the past year, including a $6 billion licensing agreement reached in August with startup Poolside, under which several Poolside employees received job offers. In addition, NVIDIA acquired most of the assets of chip startup Groq for around $20 billion.

As the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization, NVIDIA is a leading manufacturer in the AI accelerator sector (chips used to train and run AI models). In recent years, the company has gradually expanded into multiple technologies, including software, aiming to grow the AI economic ecosystem.

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, NVIDIA last week issued a surprisingly strong sales forecast for the 2028 fiscal year, with revenue expected to grow by about 70%.