Report: Nvidia to acquire AI model repository Hugging Face for $13 billion

Nvidia is reportedly moving forward to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. The acquisition could help the hardware giant expand and fortify its deep integration with the wider AI industry. Among other things, Hugging Face is a cloud repository for AI models, similar in some respects to what GitHub is for conventional computer software. Developers and researchers search for models that meet certain criteria, download and run them, and fine-tune them into different variants that then get uploaded back up to Hugging Face. The deal is not finalized, so it could still run into trouble ahead, but both parties appear to be actively pursuing it, according to a report from The Information, which cites one person with knowledge of the matter. Another source confirmed to CNBC that talks are underway. Hugging Face reportedly had other companies trying to buy it, too, including Salesforce. Nvidia had invested in Hugging Face in the past, but it wasn’t the only one—Google and Microsoft had also invested. The company was founded in 2016. Nvidia and several other tech companies have publicly supported the role of open-weight models as alternatives to the proprietary closed-frontier models trained by companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.