SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face in a deal valued at approximately $12.93 billion. The definitive agreement was signed on September 2, 2026, with Nvidia set to pay around $11.9 billion to Hugging Face shareholders, subject to customary adjustments. The deal also includes up to about $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for eligible employees. Both companies anticipate the transaction will conclude in the first half of 2027 after receiving necessary approvals.
Hugging Face offers a leading platform for AI models, datasets, libraries, and developer tools. Nvidia reports that this platform has over 18 million users, including developers, researchers, and creators. It hosts more than 3 million models and roughly 500,000 datasets, along with access to over 1 million applications for AI development. More than 200,000 companies utilize Hugging Face services to explore, test, adapt, and deploy AI systems across various computing environments.
Post-acquisition, both firms stated Hugging Face will support a wide range of models, frameworks, cloud services, and hardware platforms. Usage will not require Nvidia hardware, and the platform will maintain support for open-source and open-weight models from multiple providers. Its services will remain compatible with diverse cloud environments and accelerator technologies, with Nvidia committed to supporting silicon vendors beyond its own products as part of the deal.
Open AI platform commitments stay intact
Founded in 2016 by Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond, and Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face expanded from model hosting to datasets, developer libraries, and cloud AI tools. The company’s valuation hit $4.5 billion after raising $235 million in an August 2023 funding round from tech investors. Prior to the acquisition, Nvidia and Hugging Face collaborated on projects linking developers to Nvidia’s infrastructure and software tools.
Nvidia disclosed the deal in a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 3, 2026. The filing confirms that the transaction remains pending, pending regulatory approvals and standard closing procedures. Nvidia also outlined post-deal commitments, including continued access to models and datasets, multi-cloud support, and compatibility with hardware from other semiconductor vendors.
Expected closing scheduled for early 2027
Nvidia already has a significant presence within Hugging Face’s ecosystem, having published over 500 models and 250 open datasets. It supplies software libraries and development tools for AI projects, supporting model discovery, testing, customization, and deployment. The platform serves companies, research groups, and individual developers working in machine learning, generative AI, and other AI domains.
The $12.93 billion Nvidia deal to acquire Hugging Face will remain under review until all conditions are satisfied. Nvidia expects the acquisition to close in the first half of 2027. During this period, Hugging Face will continue supporting developers across various models, cloud services, frameworks, and hardware platforms, maintaining its multi-cloud and multi-accelerator strategies. Until then, both companies will operate independently under the terms of the signed agreement.