SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia has reached a definitive agreement to purchase Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, as announced Thursday. The deal was signed on September 2, 2026, with Nvidia set to pay approximately $11.9 billion to Hugging Face shareholders, subject to certain adjustments. Additionally, up to about $1 billion in equity-based retention awards will be granted to employees joining Nvidia. The transaction is anticipated to conclude in the first half of 2027, contingent upon regulatory approvals.
Hugging Face provides a popular platform for creating, sharing, and deploying AI models, datasets, and applications. Nvidia reports that over 18 million developers, researchers, and creators utilize the platform. It hosts more than 3 million models, 500,000 datasets, and 1 million applications, serving more than 200,000 companies that leverage its services for AI discovery, evaluation, customization, and deployment. The platform has established itself as a key hub for open-source and open-weight AI development.
Nvidia emphasized that Hugging Face will continue to support a variety of models, frameworks, cloud providers, and computing platforms. Hardware from Nvidia will not become mandatory for development or deployment on the platform. Support for open-source and open-weight models from diverse developers will persist, along with ongoing compatibility with multiple cloud services and accelerator platforms. This includes maintaining access for developers using hardware supplied by other semiconductor firms.
Deal safeguards Hugging Face’s open ecosystem
Founded in 2016 by French entrepreneurs Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond, and Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face has built software libraries alongside its hosting services for models and datasets. Valued at $4.5 billion during its last known funding round in August 2023, the company raised $235 million from tech investors. Prior collaborations with Nvidia included projects enabling developers to access Nvidia’s computing infrastructure via Hugging Face’s tools.
Nvidia disclosed the formal agreement in a Form 8-K submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 3. The filing confirms that the acquisition remains pending, requiring customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Nvidia also reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining Hugging Face’s open platform, allowing users to upload and download specific models and datasets, and supporting other silicon vendors.
Regulatory approval process pending before completion
Nvidia has already established a strong presence on Hugging Face by releasing over 500 models and 250 open datasets. The company also develops tools and libraries that developers can modify and utilize. Hugging Face supports researchers, companies, and independent developers working on AI by providing infrastructure for model hosting, datasets, software tools, and cloud resources for building and deploying AI applications.
The $12.93 billion Nvidia-Hugging Face deal remains pending until the necessary closing conditions are fulfilled. Nvidia has assured that Hugging Face will continue supporting models across the AI landscape post-acquisition. Developers will retain options involving models, frameworks, clouds, inference providers, and platforms, in line with existing commitments. The platform will also sustain multi-cloud and multi-accelerator deployment. Nvidia anticipates closing the deal in the first half of 2027 after securing all required regulatory approvals.