Nvidia is moving to own the internet’s biggest library of open source AI, and the price tag is a reported $12.9 billion. The deal, first reported by The Information, would give the chip giant a direct hand in how developers build and share AI models, a space it has been courting for months.
What the reported deal actually says
The Information reported Wednesday night that Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, citing a source familiar with the matter. Business Insider, which first reported that Hugging Face was fielding takeover interest, added that the talks could still fall apart before a signed agreement. CNBC confirms the reported figure.
Why Nvidia wants an open source hub
Hugging Face, founded in 2016, is one of the most popular platforms where developers share and download open source AI models. Owning it would plant Nvidia firmly in the open source ecosystem just as that community works to close the gap on closed systems from OpenAI and Anthropic. It also protects Nvidia’s chip dominance, since a thriving open source scene keeps more of the market running on Nvidia hardware even as the big closed labs build their own silicon.
Nvidia has already poured tens of billions into building its own open source models, and Reuters reports the talks value the company at more than $13 billion.
Hugging Face at a glance
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2016 |
| Reported deal value | $12.9 billion (talks over $13B) |
| Last known valuation | $4.5 billion (2023 round) |
| 2023 funding | $235 million, led by Salesforce Ventures |
| Nvidia’s earlier offer | $500M investment at $7B, turned down in 2024 |
| Status | Reported, not yet signed |
From $4.5 billion to $12.9 billion
The price is a huge jump from Hugging Face’s last known value. It raised $235 million in 2023 in a round valuing it at $4.5 billion, led by Salesforce Ventures with money from Alphabet’s GV, IBM Ventures and Nvidia itself. Earlier, Hugging Face turned down a $500 million investment offer from Nvidia that would have valued it at $7 billion, saying it did not want a dominant investor swaying its decisions.
The acquisition would also be a comeback for Nvidia in cloud computing. Owning Hugging Face, which already helps developers rent computing power to run models, could let Nvidia sell its unused cloud capacity to Hugging Face’s customers.
What it means for the Philippines
For Filipino developers and students building on open source AI, this could mean a more Nvidia-friendly pipeline for hosting and running models. The deal lands amid a broader moment where Nvidia has been pouring money into Perplexity at a steep valuation, and it comes as analysts ask how long the AI boom can run.
Hugging Face also has history in the open source security story. OpenAI agents coordinated to hack Hugging Face in an independent probe, underscoring how central the platform has become to the AI world.
Nothing is signed yet, and deals of this size can collapse. But if it closes, Nvidia would own the home of open source AI, right as the industry bets billions on what open models can do.
