DOJ reportedly examines Nvidia’s Hugging Face acquisition

The United States Department of Justice is reportedly examining whether Nvidia’s planned purchase of Hugging Face could harm competition in AI. Nvidia agreed to buy the company in September for almost $13 billion. Reuters reported that officials have made inquiries into how the acquisition could affect Nvidia’s competitors.

Hugging Face provides an open-source platform for hosting and testing AI models, alongside sales of AI infrastructure. The concern is that ownership could allow Nvidia to secure a key distribution channel for its own products. Nvidia declined to comment on the reported inquiries but has confirmed that Hugging Face will continue supporting a range of chip and AI providers after the acquisition closes. Completion is expected in the first half of 2027.

The scrutiny follows other DOJ examinations of Nvidia’s business practices, including its acquisition of supercomputing software company SchedMD. Officials have also considered whether Nvidia offered customers larger AI chip allocations if they bought its networking hardware and Groq chips.