Nvidia agrees to buy Hugging Face for $16.4 billion

Nvidia has agreed to buy AI platform Hugging Face, a repository of open-source AI models, for US$12.9 billion (S$16.4 billion), The Information reported on Aug 26, citing a person with knowledge of the deal.

A deal of that size would mark one of Nvidia’s largest acquisitions to date.

It also underscores how the Jensen Huang-led company at the centre of the AI boom is betting that demand for the technology is expanding rather than peaking.

It would also give Nvidia control of Hugging Face – which hosts open-source large language models and data sets – at a time when builders of closed-source models such as Anthropic and OpenAI are seeking to create their own chips as an alternative to Nvidia’s graphics processing units.

The price tag would also stand in steep contrast to its annualised revenue of US$150 million reported by The Information earlier this week.

The chipmaker and New York-based Hugging Face did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment outside regular business hours.

Nvidia was among companies such as Salesforce and Alphabet’s Google that backed Hugging Face in a US$235 million funding round in 2023, valuing the company at US$4.5 billion.

Nvidia has also invested billions of dollars across the AI ecosystem since then, backing AI developers such as OpenAI.

The Financial Times reported in January that Hugging Face in 2025 rejected a US$500 million investment offer from Nvidia that would have valued the AI platform at US$7 billion.

Nvidia’s bet on strong AI demand was highlighted on Aug 26 when it forecast a 70 per cent jump in revenue in the next fiscal year.

It also said it has US$18 billion committed to equity investments through fiscal year 2027.

The report also comes a month after Hugging Face was hit by a security incident when an OpenAI model went rogue and triggered a hack that compromised Hugging Face infrastructure. REUTERS