SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia has finalized a deal to acquire Hugging Face, valued at approximately $12.93 billion. The agreement was signed on September 2, 2026. Nvidia plans to pay about $11.9 billion to Hugging Face stockholders, subject to standard adjustments. Additionally, the deal includes up to roughly $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for eligible employees. Nvidia expects the transaction to close in the first half of 2027, pending necessary approvals and closing conditions.
Hugging Face is a popular platform for AI models, datasets, applications, and developer tools. Nvidia states that over 18 million developers, researchers, and creators utilize the platform. It hosts more than 3 million AI models and around 500,000 datasets. The platform also supports over 1 million applications. More than 200,000 companies rely on Hugging Face for tasks such as model discovery, testing, customization, and deployment across various computing environments.
Hugging Face will keep supporting developers using different models, frameworks, cloud providers, and computing platforms. Nvidia emphasized that its hardware will not be required to use the service. The platform will continue hosting open-source and open-weight models from multiple developers and organizations. Support for multiple clouds and accelerator technologies will stay available. Nvidia also committed to ensuring compatibility with silicon products from other companies after the deal’s completion.
Open access will continue across various hardware options
Hugging Face was founded in 2016 by Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond, and Thomas Wolf. The company initially focused on software tools but expanded into model hosting, datasets, applications, and cloud-based AI development services. In August 2023, Hugging Face received a valuation of $4.5 billion following a funding round that raised $235 million. Nvidia had a prior relationship with the company before the acquisition agreement. Their collaboration included projects connecting Hugging Face users with Nvidia’s computing resources and software.
Nvidia disclosed the deal through a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 3, 2026. The filing states that the acquisition is still pending. It also lists conditions that must be fulfilled before closing, such as regulatory approvals and usual closing terms. Nvidia separately outlined commitments for Hugging Face after the deal, including ongoing model and dataset support, multi-cloud functionality, and compatibility with hardware from other semiconductor companies.
Approval from regulators is still needed for the acquisition
Nvidia already provides many AI resources through Hugging Face. The company states it has published over 500 models and more than 250 open datasets on the platform. Nvidia also offers software libraries and development tools that users can adapt for their projects. Hugging Face supports companies, researchers, and independent developers across multiple AI development stages. These include model discovery, performance evaluation, system customization, and application deployment. AI applications are part of these activities.
The acquisition will not be complete until all conditions and approvals are met. Nvidia anticipates closing the $12.93 billion deal in the first half of 2027. Under the commitments announced, Hugging Face will continue supporting multiple clouds, frameworks, inference providers, and computing platforms. Developers will still have access to hardware options beyond Nvidia. Until the transaction concludes, Nvidia and Hugging Face will operate as separate entities under the terms of the agreement.