Report says Nvidia is close to buying Hugging Face for $12.9B

In short: Reports say Nvidia is nearing a $12.9 billion deal to buy Hugging Face, a popular place where people share and run open AI models.

What happened

Multiple news outlets report that chip maker Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. The Information reported the agreement, while Business Insider said a final contract may not be signed yet and the talks could still fall apart.

Hugging Face, founded in 2016, is widely used by developers to share and download “open-source” AI models, meaning the underlying code and files are published so others can reuse them. It is like a public library for AI building blocks.

TechCrunch said it contacted both companies, and neither had commented at the time of publication.

Why it matters

Nvidia is best known for the powerful chips used to train and run AI systems. Many big AI companies are trying to build their own chips so they do not have to rely as much on Nvidia. Owning Hugging Face could help Nvidia stay important even as customers look for alternatives, because more people could end up using AI models that run well on Nvidia hardware.

The reported deal could also help Nvidia return to cloud computing, which is renting computing power over the internet (like renting a car instead of buying one). Hugging Face already helps people run AI models using rented computing power, so Nvidia would not be starting from zero.

The reported price is far above Hugging Face’s last public valuation. In 2023, the company raised $235 million at a $4.5 billion valuation.

Source: TechCrunch AI