Nvidia is reportedly closing in on an acquisition of Hugging Face, the widely used platform for sharing open AI models. One account says the chipmaker has agreed to pay $12.9 billion, while another says the companies are still negotiating at a valuation above $13 billion and have not signed a deal.
The conflicting reports make the central fact uncertain. Neither Nvidia nor Hugging Face responded to TechCrunch’s requests for comment, and the talks could still fail. What is new is the reported identity of the buyer and the outline of a potential transaction, following earlier reports that Hugging Face was considering acquisition interest.
If completed, the deal would connect the dominant supplier of AI processors with one of the most important distribution hubs for open models.
Open models give Nvidia a strategic counterweight
Hugging Face was founded in 2016 and has become a central repository where developers publish, discover and use open AI models. That ecosystem matters to Nvidia because the largest closed-model laboratories increasingly design their own chips or seek alternatives to reduce their reliance on its hardware.
Open-model developers are more fragmented. They often build on broadly available infrastructure rather than proprietary stacks, leaving Nvidia with a large market for chips, software and development tools. TechCrunch describes Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as an advocate for open models, and the company has already spent heavily to support them.
Owning Hugging Face could deepen that alignment. Nvidia would gain a direct relationship with the developers choosing models and deciding where to run them. Hugging Face, in turn, would gain the backing of a supplier with extensive computing capacity and a strong incentive to keep open development active.
That strategic logic does not confirm that the reported price is justified. A model hub and community platform may influence hardware demand, but influence is not the same as guaranteed revenue. Integrating a community-oriented company into a chip giant could also test the independence that helped the platform become broadly trusted.
Cloud capacity could become part of the transaction
Hugging Face also rents computing power, giving Nvidia another possible route into cloud services. Nvidia has struggled to establish a major direct cloud business even as it sells the processors used by cloud providers. TechCrunch reports that the company already acts as a backstop buyer for unused capacity from smaller cloud operators.
Hugging Face could potentially package and resell some of that capacity to developers using its platform. The combination would link model discovery, development and rented compute in one channel, while helping Nvidia find workloads for infrastructure it has committed to support.
This is a potential commercial structure, not a disclosed acquisition plan. Neither company has explained how a combined cloud offering would work, whether Hugging Face would remain operationally independent or how existing cloud partners might respond.
The deal would also follow Nvidia’s earlier attempt to invest rather than acquire. Hugging Face reportedly rejected a $500 million Nvidia investment last year that would have valued it at $7 billion because of concerns about giving the chipmaker too much control.
A high valuation rests on growth and strategic value
Hugging Face’s last known financing was a $235 million round in 2023 at a $4.5 billion valuation. A sale near $13 billion would therefore represent a substantial premium. TechCrunch reports that the company’s annual revenue is around $150 million, up from roughly $100 million two months earlier, and that it is close to profitability.
Those figures suggest rapid growth, but they come from reporting rather than public financial statements. The proposed price would reflect more than current revenue: it would value the platform’s developer network, its role in open AI and its possible ability to direct future computing demand.
Recent infrastructure deals provide some context for that premium. Stripe reportedly agreed to acquire AI model router OpenRouter at a valuation above $7 billion, far above OpenRouter’s earlier $1.3 billion valuation. The comparison shows how strategically placed AI platforms can command prices that exceed conventional revenue multiples, but it does not establish what Hugging Face is worth.
For now, the acquisition remains unconfirmed. The Information’s reported agreement and Business Insider’s account of unsigned talks cannot both describe the same final state. Until Nvidia or Hugging Face announces a transaction, the most accurate conclusion is that negotiations appear advanced, the strategic rationale is visible and the outcome is still unresolved.
