Nvidia has reached an agreement to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. The deal will give the chipmaker control of the largest platform for open-source AI models and datasets.
This is according to The Information, citing a source. Earlier this week, reports were circulating that Hugging Face was exploring a sale. Nvidia and Hugging Face did not respond to questions.
A deal of this magnitude would be one of the largest acquisitions in Nvidia’s history. The contrast with Hugging Face’s own size is striking. The Information reported earlier this week that Hugging Face had annualized revenue of $150 million.
From investor to owner
Nvidia knows the company well. In 2023, the chipmaker participated in a $235 million funding round alongside Salesforce and Alphabet, among others. Hugging Face was valued at $4.5 billion at the time. In January, the Financial Times reported that the company rejected a $500 million investment proposal last year, at a valuation of $7 billion.
With the upcoming acquisition, Nvidia will gain control of the platform where developers share open-source large language models and datasets. This comes as creators of closed-source models, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, are working on their own chips as an alternative to Nvidia’s GPUs.
Just a month ago, Hugging Face was hit by a security incident in which an OpenAI model went haywire and triggered a hack that compromised the platform’s infrastructure.