Nvidia has discussed buying Hugging Face for more than $13 billion

Nvidia has been in talks to acquire Hugging Face in a potential deal valuing the open-source AI platform at more than $13 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The discussions took place in recent weeks, but the companies have not reached an agreement and the talks could still collapse.

The chipmaker has been expanding its dealmaking as it sits on a large investment portfolio. Nvidia said it has $18 billion committed to equity investments for the rest of its fiscal year, in addition to $47.9 billion already held in private companies. Microsoft also met with Hugging Face, but those talks are not ongoing, according to people familiar with the matter.

Nvidia already has a financial relationship with Hugging Face after participating in its $235 million funding round in 2023, which valued the company at $4.5 billion. Hugging Face later rejected a $500 million investment offer from Nvidia that would have valued it at $7 billion, citing concerns about a dominant investor influencing decisions.

Hugging Face, founded in 2016 by Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond, and Thomas Wolf, hosts millions of AI models and datasets used by developers. Nvidia ownership could strengthen its reach with developers, but it may also raise questions about Hugging Face’s neutrality because the platform supports hardware from Nvidia rivals including AMD and Intel.