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NVIDIA agrees to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion

September 3, 2026 at 08:44 EDT

Funding & M&A
Open Source
Foundation Models

NVIDIA has confirmed a definitive agreement to buy Hugging Face, the open-model hosting platform, in a transaction valued at $12.93 billion, with closing targeted for the first half of 2027 if regulators approve. The chipmaker’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, said NVIDIA would scale the hub, strengthen its infrastructure, and keep it open to the broader AI ecosystem.

September 3, 2026 · NVIDIA

NVIDIA buys the open-model hub

A definitive agreement values Hugging Face at $12.93 billion. Closing is targeted for the first half of 2027, pending regulatory approval, with a pledge to keep the platform open to other silicon vendors.

$12.93B

Announced deal value

~$11.9B

Payable to stockholders

~$1.0B

Max employee retention

H1 2027

Expected close window

Valuation climb: 2023 round vs. 2026 deal

Side-by-side columns are scaled to the reported figures ($4.5B Series D vs. $12.93B acquisition).

$4.5B

Series D, 2023

$12.93B

Acquisition, 2026

The deal is nearly triple the 2023 post-money valuation. Hugging Face had earlier declined a $500 million NVIDIA investment at a $7 billion valuation.

What NVIDIA pledged

The hub stays open: users pick models, clouds, inference providers, and chips. NVIDIA compute is not required. Other silicon vendors remain supported.

What critics flag

Owning the main open-model marketplace plus GPU supply could still tilt defaults. Merger review is required. China-origin open models add regulatory risk.

What NVIDIA is buying

A distribution layer used by more than 18 million people and 200,000 companies — not a high-margin software franchise on current sales.

3M+ models ~500k datasets 1M applications ~$150M ARR (reported)

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