Recent accounts say Nvidia, which makes most of the specialized chips used to train and run modern AI systems, may buy Hugging Face. Hugging Face is a website and software platform where people post open-source AI models. Business Insider said the two companies have talked in recent weeks about a purchase that would value Hugging Face at more than thirteen billion dollars, that they have not finished a deal, and that the talks could still fail. The Information (paywalled) said Nvidia has already agreed to pay twelve point nine billion dollars. Reuters and Bloomberg repeated those versions. Microsoft also met with Hugging Face, according to Business Insider, but those talks are not continuing. Neither Nvidia nor Hugging Face answered requests for comment so far.
What the numbers show
Hugging Face was valued at four point five billion dollars in a 2023 fundraising round. Nvidia took part in that round, as did Google, Amazon, and Salesforce. Late last year Hugging Face refused a five hundred million dollar investment from Nvidia that would have valued the company at seven billion dollars. People there said they did not want one large investor with enough power to steer decisions. The Information also reported that Hugging Face’s sales, measured as if they continued at the same pace for a full year, are about one hundred fifty million dollars. A twelve point nine billion dollar price would therefore be many times that yearly sales figure.
If a sale happens, Nvidia would control the main public square where open models are posted and downloaded. That matters because some builders of closed models, whose inner workings are not released, are trying to depend less on Nvidia chips, while most open models still run on them. Nvidia recently said it expects revenue to rise about seventy percent next fiscal year and that it has eighteen billion dollars set aside for equity investments, meaning purchases of shares in other companies, through the rest of its 2027 fiscal year. Until both companies speak, the reports remain unconfirmed.