Nvidia in talks to acquire Hugging Face for over $13B

Nvidia ↗ 1.48% has been in serious acquisition talks with Hugging Face, the open-source AI platform, in what could become one of the chipmaker's largest deals, Business Insider reported on Wednesday. The discussions in recent weeks have centered on a deal valuing Hugging Face at more than $13 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter, though no agreement has been reached and talks could still collapse.businessinsider

The revelation marks an escalation from earlier reports over the weekend that Hugging Face was broadly exploring a sale. Reuters and Bloomberg confirmed that the company had engaged a bank to gauge buyer interest, but did not identify a specific suitor. Business Insider's latest reporting names Nvidia as the party in direct conversations.reuters+1

From Rejected Investment to Acquisition Talks

The talks represent a dramatic shift in the relationship between the two companies. In late 2025, Hugging Face turned down a $500 million investment offer from Nvidia that would have valued the platform at $7 billion, according to the Financial Times. Hugging Face said at the time it did not want a dominant investor that could sway decisions.gurufocus+1

Nvidia already holds a stake in Hugging Face from its participation in the company's $235 million Series D round in 2023, which valued the startup at $4.5 billion. That round also included Salesforce ↗ 0.60% Ventures, Alphabet ↘ 2.18%, Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. ↘ 2.50%, Intel ↗ 0.04%, and Qualcomm ↗ 3.83%.businessinsider+1

Nvidia has ramped up dealmaking with its cash reserves, disclosing Wednesday that it has $18 billion committed to equity investments for the rest of its fiscal year, on top of $47.9 billion it already holds in private companies.businessinsider

Neutrality Questions Loom Over Potential Deal

Owning Hugging Face could give Nvidia a larger foothold with the millions of developers who use the platform to discover, share, and deploy AI models, potentially driving more workloads onto its chips. The Hub now hosts more than three million public models and around one million datasets.kucoin+1

But Nvidia ownership could complicate one of Hugging Face's core strengths: its neutrality. The platform supports models and hardware from across the industry, including Nvidia competitors such as AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ↗ 1.10% and Intel. CEO Clément Delangue has repeatedly emphasized the platform's responsibility to its open-source community.businessinsider+2

Microsoft ↘ 1.22% also met with Hugging Face, but those talks are not ongoing, according to Business Insider. The broader interest in AI distribution layers was underscored by Stripe's recent agreement to acquire OpenRouter, a model-routing marketplace, for roughly $7.5 to $8 billion.kucoin+1

Hugging Face indicated in mid-2026 that annualized revenue had surpassed $100 million for the first time and that the company was close to profitability. Whether any deal materializes will depend on whether Nvidia can satisfy the company's community-oriented principles while justifying a valuation nearly triple the last confirmed mark.kucoin