Update (Sept. 3, 1:30 PM UTC): This article was updated to clarify details of the acquisition.

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, extending its reach into the software and tools developers use to build artificial intelligence.

The chipmaker agreed to acquire Hugging Face, a platform serving more than 18 million developers and hosting over 3 million models, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a Thursday announcement (Nvidia blog).

"Hugging Face will remain an open platform for the entire AI ecosystem," Huang said, adding that developers will remain free to choose their models, frameworks, cloud providers and computing platforms. That commitment is notable because Hugging Face hosts many open-weight models from third parties, including offerings that compete with Nvidia's own stack, and its neutrality has been central to its adoption as a default hub for open AI development.

The deal gives Nvidia control of a major platform for AI models as technology companies increasingly compete across chips, software and developer tools. The acquisition follows Nvidia's earlier moves beyond silicon, such as its open-source CUDA ecosystem and enterprise AI software offerings, as the company works to stay central to AI development even as rivals push alternative accelerators and frameworks.

Hugging Face won't require Nvidia hardware

Nvidia hardware will not be required to build or deploy through Hugging Face, Huang said. While Nvidia already publishes more than 500 models and 250 open datasets on the platform, Hugging Face will continue supporting models from other developers as well as multiple cloud and accelerator providers.

The companies have also worked together on AI infrastructure and development tools, giving Nvidia an established relationship with Hugging Face before the acquisition.

Huang said Nvidia's infrastructure, engineering and global reach could help improve Hugging Face's reliability, safety, model evaluation, inference and deployment capabilities. How the neutrality pledge is implemented in practice after closing will be a key point for developers and regulators watching whether access to the platform stays vendor-neutral.

Nvidia sets aside $1 billion for Hugging Face employees

Nvidia will pay about $11.9 billion to Hugging Face investors and offer up to $1 billion through an equity-based retention program for employees who join Nvidia, Reuters reported Thursday.

The transaction is expected to close in 2027, the Financial Times reported. Nvidia's announcement did not specify the regulatory approvals required for the acquisition or provide a more precise closing date. The long runway to closing indicates the deal is likely to face an extended regulatory review, as large technology acquisitions in the AI sector have drawn heightened antitrust scrutiny in the United States and Europe.

Cointelegraph approached Nvidia for comment on the reported employee retention package, expected closing timeline and regulatory approvals but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

The acquisition comes about a month after Hugging Face disclosed a security breach involving an autonomous AI agent that gained unauthorized access to internal datasets and service credentials. The company said it found no evidence of tampering with public models, datasets or applications.

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