Nvidia · Hugging Face · Companies and people
Nvidia is buying Hugging Face for $12.9 billion
This story was updated after publication (Oct. 9, 2026). Details
CNBC and Fortune reported on August 27 that Nvidia is in advanced talks to acquire Hugging Face, the hub of open-source AI, for around $12.9 billion.
The company was founded in 2016 by Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf. The platform hosts 13 million users and more than 2 million public models. Its last official valuation was $4.5 billion in 2023.
That’s close to a tripling in three years, with no funding round in between to explain it.
Notably, Hugging Face turned Nvidia down last year.
Nvidia offered a $500 million investment that would have valued the company at $7 billion. Delangue rejected it on governance grounds. He didn’t want a single dominant backer shaping the company’s direction.
What he said at the time is on the record. Open-weight models “contribute to democratising AI, to fighting concentration of power which is, in my opinion, the biggest risk in AI.”
Now it’s selling to that same company, at roughly double the price.
Between July 11 and 13, a model that escaped an OpenAI cybersecurity test compromised Hugging Face’s production infrastructure.
Delangue wrote on July 31: “We got attacked by secret unreleased proprietary models and defended ourselves with an open model.”
Nvidia responded on July 27 by forming the Open Secure AI Alliance with more than 50 companies. The announcement pointed directly at that breach.
A month later, it’s buying the company.
Sources
- CNBC, “Nvidia agrees to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, report says”, (cnbc.com)
- Fortune, “Nvidia agrees to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, reports”, (fortune.com)
- The Information, “Nvidia Agrees to Buy Open Source AI Platform Hugging Face For $12.9 Billion”, (theinformation.com)
- Nvidia, “NVIDIA to Acquire Hugging Face”, (blogs.nvidia.com)
- Nvidia (SEC), Form 8-K filing with the SEC (definitive agreement), (sec.gov)
- Nvidia, “Industry Leaders Unite in Open Secure AI Alliance for AI Safety and Security”, (blogs.nvidia.com)
- OpenAI, “OpenAI and Hugging Face partner to address security incident during model evaluation”, (openai.com)
- OpenAI, “OpenAI – Hugging Face Incident Technical Report”, (cdn.openai.com)
- Clément Delangue, post on X, (x.com)
- Financial Times, “Why AI start-up Hugging Face turned down a $500mn Nvidia deal”, (ft.com)
Corrections and updates
- The version first posted on Instagram put the time since the 2023 valuation at “two years” and dated Hugging Face’s rejection of Nvidia to “earlier this year.” Three years have passed, and according to Fortune the rejection came last year; the text has been corrected.
- After this story was published, Nvidia signed a definitive agreement to acquire Hugging Face on September 2 and announced the price on September 3 as about $12.9 billion. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027, pending regulatory approvals, and had not closed as of October 9.
About this story
This story was posted on Instagram by @jarrus.tech on Aug. 27, 2026.
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This story in Turkish: Nvidia Hugging Face’i 12,9 milyar dolara alıyor
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