SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Nvidia has announced a binding agreement to acquire Hugging Face in a transaction valued at approximately $12.93 billion. The deal was formalized on September 2, 2026. Nvidia will compensate Hugging Face shareholders with around $11.9 billion, subject to standard adjustments. Additionally, the agreement includes up to about $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for eligible employees. Nvidia anticipates completing the acquisition in the first half of 2027, contingent upon necessary approvals and closing conditions.
Hugging Face runs a popular platform offering AI models, datasets, applications, and developer tools. Nvidia states that over 18 million developers, researchers, and creators utilize this service. The platform hosts more than 3 million AI models and approximately 500,000 datasets, supporting over 1 million applications. More than 200,000 companies rely on Hugging Face for activities such as model discovery, testing, customization, and deployment across diverse computing environments.
Following the acquisition, Hugging Face will keep supporting developers working with various models, frameworks, cloud providers, and computing platforms. Nvidia clarified that its hardware will not become a mandatory requirement for using the platform. The service will continue to host open-source and open-weight models from multiple developers and organizations, maintaining support for different cloud services and accelerator hardware. Nvidia has also committed to ensuring compatibility with silicon products made by other companies once the deal concludes.
Open access to the platform will persist across diverse hardware options
Hugging Face was founded in 2016 by Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond, and Thomas Wolf. Since then, the company has grown from offering software tools into a platform for model hosting, datasets, applications, and cloud-based AI development services. In August 2023, Hugging Face achieved a valuation of $4.5 billion after raising $235 million in funding. Nvidia’s relationship with the company predates the acquisition agreement, with past collaborations involving projects that linked Hugging Face users to Nvidia 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 and outlines the conditions needed for completion, including regulatory approvals and standard closing provisions. Nvidia also outlined post-closing commitments, such as ongoing support for models and datasets, multi-cloud functionality, and compatibility with hardware from other semiconductor makers.
Regulatory approval remains a key step for the acquisition
Nvidia already offers a broad range of AI resources through the Hugging Face platform, including over 500 published models and more than 250 open datasets. The company also supplies software libraries and development tools for users to adapt to their projects. Hugging Face serves a broad spectrum of users—from companies and researchers to independent developers—covering stages from model discovery and performance evaluation to customization and deployment of AI applications.
Until all conditions and approvals are met, the acquisition will remain incomplete. Nvidia projects that the $12.93 billion transaction will close during the first half of 2027. As part of the announced commitments, Hugging Face will continue supporting multiple cloud providers, frameworks, inference engines, and computing platforms. Developers will also retain access to hardware options beyond Nvidia products. Until the deal’s finalization, Nvidia and Hugging Face will operate as separate entities under the terms of the agreement.