SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia has signed a $12.93 billion agreement to acquire artificial intelligence platform Hugging Face. The companies entered the definitive agreement on September 2, 2026. Nvidia will pay about $11.9 billion to Hugging Face stockholders, subject to customary adjustments. The transaction also provides up to about $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for eligible employees. Nvidia expects the acquisition to close in the first half of 2027 after required approvals and other closing conditions.
Hugging Face runs one of the largest platforms for sharing artificial intelligence models, datasets, software tools and applications. Nvidia says the service reaches more than 18 million developers, researchers and creators worldwide. Its platform hosts more than 3 million models and about 500,000 datasets. It also provides access to more than 1 million applications. More than 200,000 companies use Hugging Face services for AI development, evaluation, customization and deployment across a wide range of computing environments.
The companies said Hugging Face will continue operating as an open platform after the transaction closes. Developers will remain free to choose their models, frameworks, cloud services and computing platforms. Nvidia hardware will not become mandatory for using Hugging Face tools or deploying models through the platform. Hugging Face will also continue supporting open-source and open-weight models from other developers. Its services will maintain support for multiple clouds, inference providers and accelerator platforms, including hardware supplied by other semiconductor companies.
Hugging Face to retain open development model
Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf founded Hugging Face in 2016. The company later expanded into model hosting, datasets, developer libraries and cloud services for artificial intelligence projects. Hugging Face secured a $4.5 billion valuation during a funding round completed in August 2023. That financing raised $235 million from technology investors. Nvidia had already worked with Hugging Face before the acquisition agreement through projects that connected developers with Nvidia computing resources and software through familiar Hugging Face development tools.
Nvidia reported the agreement in a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 3, 2026. The filing states that the acquisition remains pending and has not yet closed. The transaction still requires regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Nvidia also detailed commitments covering the future operation of the Hugging Face platform. Those commitments include continued model and dataset access, multi-cloud support and compatibility with accelerator hardware produced by companies other than Nvidia.
Closing targeted for first half of 2027
Nvidia already has a substantial presence within the Hugging Face developer ecosystem. The chipmaker says it has published more than 500 models and more than 250 open datasets on the platform. Nvidia also provides software libraries and development tools that users can modify and incorporate into their own work. Hugging Face supports developers across several stages of AI development, including model discovery, testing, customization and deployment. The platform also provides infrastructure for companies, research organizations and independent developers building artificial intelligence applications.
The Nvidia acquisition of Hugging Face will remain subject to review until all required conditions have been met. Nvidia expects completion during the first half of 2027. Under the announced terms, Hugging Face will continue supporting models and tools from across the broader AI ecosystem. Developers will retain choices involving frameworks, cloud platforms, inference providers and computing hardware. The companies have also committed to preserving Hugging Face’s multi-cloud and multi-accelerator approach after the acquisition closes.